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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 









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REGINALD HEBER HOWE, D.D. 



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NEW YORK 
THOMAS WHITTAKER 

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Copyright, 1895, 
By Reginald H. Howe. 



The Library 
of Congress 



WASHINGTON 



TO MY FATHER 

THE RIGHT REVEREND 

THE BISHOP OF CENTRAL PENNSYLVANIA 

FULL OF HONOURS AND OF YEARS 

YEARS OF BLESSING TO MANY SOULS 

THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED 

BY A GRATEFUL 

SON IN THE MINISTRY 



preface. 

Definiteness of aim is as important in 
religion as in other things. To strengthen and 
deepen the spiritual life not only for forty, but 
for all the days, is the true purpose of Lent. 
To accomplish this, by composing the mind, by 
fixing it on some high and worthy object, by 
more faithful use of all the means of grace — 
in a word, by being still and communing with 
God — should be our aim. 

It is one, and one only, among instrumental- 
ities such as these, but believed by the author 
and compiler of this little manual to be an 
effective and helpful one, to have some definite 
devotional reading for each of the Forty Days, 
progressively in keeping, in sentiment, and 
spirit, with the season as it advances, to guide 
and direct the thoughts. 

And so, beside what his own pen has sup- 
plied, laying under contribution whatever he 
5 



PREFACE. 

felt would minister to this end, plucking flowers 
from every garden and drawing gems from 
every mine, he sends forth his book, earnestly 
hoping that it may not wholly fail of the 
purpose it has in view, the closer walk with 
God of many souls through Lent, and thereby 
through all the year. 

R. H. H. 
The Rect 
Church of Our Saviour, 



" The ideas of the Lenten observance,' , says 
Bishop Barry, " are : — 

i. Penitence, marked in the Ash Wednesday 
Collect. 

2. Self-discipline and Self-chastisement, marked 

in Collect for First Sunday. 

3. Special Devotion, and particularly adoring 

commemoration of the Atonement, as on 
Passion Sunday and in Holy Week. 

" These are, in the Church of England," and we 
may add in her sister church in America, " left to 
free spiritual obedience, without the fixed, elaborate 
rules of other communions ; and the first two are 
obviously means to secure the third, which is the 
chief end." 

It is, in general, along the line thus indicated, as 
the Forty Days move on, that the reader of these 
pages will find the progress of thought and feeling 
to run, each Sunday as it comes bringing its own 
special thought, and the one object of all to lead us 
to Him who is at once the Way and the Truth and 
the Life. 

To all words that are not original, the name of 
the writer is added. 

7 



Lord ! who, throughout these forty days, 

For us didst fast and pray, 
Teach us with Thee to mourn our sins, 

And close by Thee to stay. 

As Thou with Satan didst contend, 

And didst the victory win, 
Oh, give us strength in Thee to fight, 

In Thee to conquer sin. 

As Thou didst hunger bear, and thirst, 

So teach us, gracious Lord, 
To die to self, and chiefly live — 

By Thy most holy Word. 

And through these days of penitence, 
And through Thy passion-tide, 

Yea, evermore, in life and death, 
Jesu ! with us abide. 

Abide with us, that so, this life 

Of suffering overpast, 

An Easter of unending joy 

We may attain at last. 

C. F. Hernaman. 
8 



Iiv5t lUcck. 
9 

&sij SHrtmrstiag. 

And he said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a 
desert place, and rest awhile : for there were many coming 
and going, and they had no leisure. — St. Mark vi. 31. 

As we read these words, on this first day of 
another Lent, we seem to hear Jesus speaking, 
not to the Twelve, inviting them to accompany 
him to the retired plain of Batihah, at the upper 
end of the Lake of Gennesaret, but to us. To 
us, to come apart with Him, for a time at least, 
from the world and the noise and confusion of 
the multitude, and in the quiet of this holy sea- 
son seek spiritual refreshment for the soul, and 
so for the duties of life. The first call of the 
Master at this time is for this, the first invita- 
tion of the Church, to come apart to rest awhile, 
and, free from the distractions of our busy lives, 
to hold closer and deeper and more constant 
communion with Him. And all this, which 
otherwise might not be ours in like degree, in 
9 



FIRST WEEK. — ASH WEDNESDAY. 

order that when the multitude closes in again 
about us, as it did about them, it may take 
knowledge of us that we have been with Jesus, 
and that we may do our work better in the 
world. Other thoughts, as w T e shall see, the sea- 
son has for us ; this one meets us on the thresh- 
old of Lent, is, as it were, the porch of the 
temple we are about to enter. It awakens, one 
cannot but believe, an echo in many hearts, in 
these strenuous, restless days ; and gladly we 
respond to His call, and go with Him where 
He leads. 

" Seek a convenient time to retire into thy- 
self, and meditate often upon God's loving-kind- 
ness. 

In silence and in stillness a religious soul ad- 
vantageth herself, and learneth the mysteries of 
Holy Scripture. 

Shut thy door upon thee, and call unto Jesus 
thy beloved. 

Stay with Him in thy closet, for thou shalt 
not find so great peace anywhere else. 

He, therefore, that intends to attain to the 
more inward and spiritual things of religion, 
must with Jesus depart from the multitude and 
press of people." 

So wrote Thomas a Kempis from the Mon- 



FIRST WEEK. — ASH WEDNESDAY. 

astery of Mt. St. Agnes, in his " Imitation of 
Christ," a book that has been translated into 
almost every known tongue. Its strength was 
that it emphasized one side of the Christian 
life ; its limitation, that it dwelt chiefly on 
only one. 

We reach, then, the one great principle, 
which is the same for both parts of our Chris- 
tian life — the hours of retirement and the 
hours of action — the soul in secret and in so- 
ciety. When Christ said to the weary disciples, 
" Come ye apart and rest," did He say, " Stay 
apart, scorn society, escape like a sentimental 
hermit from mankind, because mankind are 
bad " ? Never that. " Rest awhile." But when 
the noisy comers and goers, fainting, sinning, 
dying, needed His gracious ministries again, 
He broke up His rest, and went back to feed 
their hunger, to heal their sick, to wash their 
feet. When the people pressed upon Him out 
of their cities, and cried to Him, He had com- 
passion on them, and came down from the 
mount, because they were as sheep having no 
shepherd; and then Master :\nd disciples went 
on their way of work together. Our religion is 
one-half the loving adoration of God ; the other 



FIRST WEEK. — ASH WEDNESDAY. 

half is the loving service of the brother whom 
we have seen, — our fellow-man. Get down on 
your knees alone, or you will begin no work 
aright, and then up and be doing. 

Bishop Huntington. 

By all means use sometimes to be alone. 
Salute thyself; see what thy soul doth wear; 
Dare to look in thy chest, for 'tis thine own, 
And tumble up and down what thou findest there. 

George Herbert. 

We need not bid, for cloister'd cell, 
Our neighbor and our work farewell, 
Nor strive to wind ourselves too high 
For sinful man beneath the sky ; 

The trivial round, the common task, 
Would furnish all we ought to ask : 
Room to deny ourselves ; a road 
To bring us daily nearer God. kftctf 

O most merciful Master, who hast bidden us to 
enter into the closet, that we may seek Thee and 
find Thee in the secret place, and who hast com- 
manded us to work while it is called to-day, grant, 
we beseech Thee, that we may follow Thee obe- 
diently both in prayer and labor, that we may be 
strengthened with might from the mountain of Thy 
holiness, and directed in all our service to our fel- 
low-men, the children of Thy Father and our Father, 
unto whom with Thee and the Holy Ghost we ren- 
der all honor and praise, world without end. Amen. 



FIRST WEEK. 

Be still, and know that I am God. — Psalm xlvi. 10. 

Commune with your own heart, and in your chamber, 
and be still. — Psalm iv. 4. 

And He arose, and rebuked the wind, and said unto 
the sea, Peace, be still. And the wind ceased, and there 
was a great calm. — St. Mark iv. 39. 

It is in the calmness of the soul — not when 
its passions are awake, not in its insensibility, 
but in its calmness — that we become most 
conscious of the Divine presence. Thus the 
prophet sought his cave ; and the patriarch 
went out at eventide to meditate ; and Jesus 
found, on the solitary summit of the mountain, 
a place where He might be alone to pray. But, 
forgetting these great examples, we spend our 
days in restlessness and hurry, amidst the strug- 
gling and competing crowd, and beset by the 
stings and goads of ceaseless excitement. Man 
and the works of man come between the eye 
and the works of the Almighty, till, enslaved to 
the senses, it seems to us as if there were noth- 
ing in the universe except these human contri- 
vances and projects and interests. We need, 
more than the patriarch of old, to go forth at 
eventide to meditate and to seek in the quiet- 
ness of the heart the presence of God. 
13 



FIRST WEEK. THURSDAY. 

Stillness of mind ! What meaning in these 
words. Be still ! Yes, this is the first step to 
knowing anything of God. While I am engaged 
in the stir and struggle of daily business — the 
sounds of the wharf, the street, and the work- 
shop in my ear — how hard to think of anything 
beyond. Man is too near. His words fill my 
ear and shut out all divine voices. Everything 
that connects man with earth is awake, but the 
soul sleeps. 

You have seen a lake embosomed in the hills. 
In the morning, while the winds swept over it, 
you could see only the glittering surface, tossed 
into spangles of light, which, instead of reveal- 
ing, did but hide the depths below. But the 
winds went down, and the waters grew calm as 
those over which the feet of the Saviour passed ; 
and there, in the calmness, its depths were dis- 
closed, its rim of shining sands, and the reflec- 
tion of the forests and the skies, and, as night 
came down, the everlasting stars. So it is in 
the calm and silent soul — when the passions are 
hushed, and this superficial disturbance of the 
world is stilled, the great truths of heaven are 
reflected there. 

" Be still, and know that I am God ! " Be still, 
thou mourning heart, and know that it is God 
14 



FIRST WEEK. THURSDAY. 

who sendeth sorrow, as He sendeth joy. Be 
still, trembling and timid soul, and put your 
trust in God, and His arm shall bear you up as 
you walk over the waves. Be still, guilty heart, 
and, when sin tempts, remember Him who is 
judge of quick and dead. Be still, desponding 
and distrustful soul, who art thrown into de- 
spair by the delay of good, or seeming triumph 
of wrong, and fear not, but wait, for the Lord 
God omnipotent reigneth. E. Teabody. 

Calm me, my God, and keep me calm, 

Soft resting on Thy breast ; 
Soothe me with holy hymn and psalm, 

And bid my spirit rest. 

Yes ! keep me calm, though loud and rude 

The sounds my ear that greet ; 
Calm in the closet's solitude ; 

Calm in the bustling street ; 

Calm in the day of buoyant health ; 

Calm in my hour of pain ; 
Calm in my poverty or wealth ; 

Calm in my loss* or gain ; 

Calm in the sufferance of wrong, 

Like Him who bore my shame, jj BoNAK 

Grant, we beseech Thee, merciful Lord, to Thy 

faithful people pardon and peace, that they may be 

cleansed from ail their sins, and serve Thee with a 

quiet mind, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

'5 



FIRST WEEK. 



Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins 
may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall 
come from the presence of the Lord. — Acts iii. 19. 

Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance. 

St. Matthew iii. 8. 

He that repents truly is greatly sorrowful for 
his past sins ; not with a superficial sigh or tear, 
but a pungent, afflictive sorrow, such a sorrow 
as hates the sin so much that the man would 
choose to die rather than act it any more. The 
repentance is not to be estimated by the tears, 
but by the grief ; the grief is to be valued not 
by the sensitive trouble, but by the cordial 
hatred of the sin, and ready, actual dereliction 
of it, and a resolution and real resisting its con- 
sequent temptation. 

Some people can shed tears for nothing, some 
for anything ; but the proper and true effects of 
a godly sorrow are fear of the divine judgments, 
apprehension of God's displeasure, watchings 
and strivings against sin. 

True repentance must reduce to act all its 
holy purposes, and enter into and run through 
16 



FIRST WEEK. — FRIDAY. 

the state of holy living, which is contrary to 
that state of darkness in which in times past 
we walked. For to resolve to do it and yet not 
to do it, is to break our resolution and our faith, 
to mock God, to falsify and evacuate all the 
preceding acts of repentance, and to make our 
pardon hopeless, and our hope fruitless. He 
that resolves to live well when a danger is upon 
him, or a violent fear, or when the appetites of 
lust are newly satisfied or newly served, and yet 
when the temptation comes again sins again, 
and then is sorrowful, and resolves once more 
against it, and yet falls when the temptation 
returns, is a vain man, but no true penitent, 
nor in the state of grace, for if it be necessary 
that we resolve to live well, it is necessary we 
should do so. A holy life is the only perfection 
of repentance, and the firm ground upon which 
we can cast the anchor of hope in the mercies 
of God through Jesus Christ. 

Jeremy Taylor. 

And as that soul went onward, sweetly speeding 

Unto its home and light, 
Repentance made it sorrowful exceeding, 

Faith made it wondrous bright ; 
Repentance dark with shadowy recollections, 

And longings unsufficed ; 
17 



FIRST WEEK. FRIDAY. 

Faith white and pure with sunniest affections 

Full from the face of Christ ; 
But both across the sun-besilvered tide 
Helped to the haven where the heart would ride. 

W. Alexander. 

O blessed Jesus! give me a true repentance for 
all my sins ; that I may with real sorrow confess 
them, and by thy grace forsake all that is evil. 
Amen. 



18 



FIRST WEEK. 

iSaturtag* 

Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and 
forbearance and longsuffering ; not knowing that the 
goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance ? 

Romans ii. 4. 

So do the Scriptures speak of repentance. 
In them it is nothing of gloom or arbitrary 
exaction. It is an act illumined with the high- 
est and most glorious hopes. Their language 
is, " Repent ye, for the kingdom of heaven is at 
hand." It is leaving behind all things base and 
bad and degrading, and ascending into the light. 
God smiles upon it, the angels rejoice over it, 
the earth is blessed by it. 

The opportunity and ability to repent is one 
of the highest privileges that God has granted 
to man. Let decay commence at the heart of 
the oak, the tree has no self-restoring power, 
but must go on decaying till it falls. The 
temple whose foundations begin to crumble 
cannot restore itself, but, faster or slower, will 
crumble till it sinks in the dust. Bird and 
beast, could they wander from their instincts, 
know not how to correct their error. But to 
man, within certain limits, and to man alone, 
Almighty God has seen fit to give the power of 
19 



FIRST WEEK. — SATURDAY. 

self-recovery. If moral decay touch his heart, 
and the innocence of childhood be gone, and sin 
have darkened his way and his bosom, still all 
hope is not gone. There is still a power at the 
centre to resist evil. And through its exertion, 
difficult though it may be, he may be raised 
from the darkness and night into the day. 

For the possession of this power, so frail and 
sinful as we are, we ought to give loudest thanks. 
Let there be no restoration, no recovery, no 
repentance, and we should, with bended knees, 
wear out the very footstool of heaven in prayer 
to be permitted to repent. We should not then 
speak of the difficulty of repentance — we should 
implore God as for an immeasurable good to be 
allowed at every cost and difficulty to repent. 

Do not look, then, on the command of God 
to repent as a hard and exacting one. It is 
our chief privilege. Let him who has wronged 
another thank God that he is able to repair the 
wrong. Let him who has indulged unworthy 
passions thank God for the time and opportunity 
to rescue himself from their tyranny. Let him 
whose life has been unprofitable to man and in 
the sight of God, rejoice that he is permitted 
to turn and fill up his remaining days with 
greater usefulness. e. Peabody. 

20 



FIRST WEEK, — SATURDAY. 

The Lord let the house of a brute to the soul of a man, 

And the man said, " Am I your debtor? " 
And the Lord said, ' ; Not yet ; but make it as clean as 
you can, 

And then I will let you a better. 11 

Tennyson. 

Blessed Lord, make me, I beseech thee, so 
wholly thine that I cannot abuse thy wonderful 
love and unfailing compassion : may thy goodness 
lead me this day to repentance, and thy Holy Spirit 
so abide with me that I may glorify thee in thought, 
word, and deed ; for my dear Saviour's sake. 
Amen. 

" Turn ye even to me, saith the Lord, with all 
your heart.'' 

" Turn thou us, O good Lord, and so shall we be 
turned." 

21 



Zty jfirst Sunliag tit lent* 

Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilder- 
ness to be tempted of the devil. And when He had 
fasted forty days and forty nights, He was afterward an 
hungred. — St. Matthew iv. i, 2. 

What means it, this fact in the life of our 
Saviour, provided for our reading on this first 
Sunday in Lent ? What means its record, as a 
fact, on the gospel page at all ? I would I could 
tell you how much it seems to me it does mean. 

Conceive of a gospel telling of a Saviour of 
tempted, sinning man, and not recording for us 
somewhere on its page that He was tempted, 
leaving us no such blessed assurance as this, " In 
that He hath suffered being tempted, He is able 
also to succour them that are tempted." You 
would, I think, put it away from you unsatisfied; 
you would say, would you not, This is no gospel, 
no good news, no glad tidings for me. Daily 
struggling with my evil inclinations, daily fight- 
ing with my will ; seeing the good, but choosing 
the evil ; weak, weak, in my own strength, if, 
indeed, I may call it that at all when so often it 
fails me altogether — I want a Saviour who at 
least has felt the power of temptation, and who, 
22 



THE FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT. 

feeling it, yet has overcome ; nay, who, in over- 
coming, not only did so in my nature, and so, 
in a sense, for me, revealing and ennobling my 
possibilities, but gained the victory by just such 
means as are vouchsafed to us. I want one, 
too, to whom the temptation was real. And 
this we may believe it was. However unable 
we may be to penetrate its mysteries, or to say 
how it was that He could be tempted, we may 
at least rest assured of the reality of the tempta- 
tion. Yes, it was no mere semblance of a strug- 
gle that is here described. Surely, it would not 
be there at all if it were not that. Somehow, 
though we may not be able to tell how, but 
somehow, He felt the power, the force of temp- 
tation ; the one only reservation the apostle 
makes, the only one we need to make being, 
that He was without sin. Just as far as He 
could go without that, He did go for our sakes, 
in that wondrous putting of Himself in our con- 
dition. This is why the story of it is written 
there upon the gospel page. It was for our 
learning, for our encouragement. It was that 
we may be sure of His sympathy, and share His 
victory. It was that we may know that God 
u will not suffer US to be tempted above that we 
are able, but will with the temptation also make 
23 



THE FIRST SUNDAY IN LENT. 

a way to escape, that we may be able to bear 
it." 

O Thou once tempted like as we, 
Thou knowest our infirmity ; 
Be Thou our helper in the strife, 
Be Thou our true, our inward life. 

J. F. Thrupp. 

O blessed Saviour, who didst fast in the desert 
for forty days, both to suffer for us and to set 
us an holy example of self-denial, grant that I may 
faithfully use this time which Thy Holy Church has 
set apart that we may imitate Thee in self-denial, 
watchfulness, and prayer, Thou who wast tempted 
for us, yet without sin, and knowest how to help 
those who are tempted, give me grace to fight 
against all evil. Turn me unto Thyself with my 
whole heart, and give me a more earnest desire for 
holiness, that sowing now in tears of true sorrow 
for my sins, I may hereafter reap eternal joy, and so 
this sacred season shall prepare my heart for Thine 
eternal kingdom. Amen. 



24 



0econft it)cck\ 



For we have not an High Priest which cannot be 
touched with the feeling of our infirmities ; but was in all 
points tempted like as we are, yet without sin. 

Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, 
that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time 
of need. — Hebrews iv. 15, 16. 

" Tempted like as we are." Let us see. He 
was an hungered. There was naught that was 
good for food, or pleasant to the eyes, in all that 
dreary waste. But the stones, the loaf-like flints 
of the Jordan desert, lay about upon the ground. 
Why should you die here in the wilderness ? 
exert the power that you have, and suffer no 
longer. Prove thee who thou art. " If thou be 
the Son of God, command that these stones be 
made bread." It was the voice of the tempter. 
It would have been an easy solution of the diffi- 
culty. But, no, He will not. "Mail doth not 
live by bread alone, but by every word that pro- 
ceeded! out of the mouth of God." Man can 
leave his life, and all that belongs to it, in his 
25 



SECOND WEEK. — : KDAY 

Father's hands if that be 

the issue, he is certain to save it If God has 
given us a work to do, He will enable us to ful- 
fil it. There is a life of the soul as well as of 
the body, and is not the life more than meat, 
and the body than raiment Me that h- 

eth shall not make 

Bread! bre: and sim- 

ple sense, the str millions of our fellow- 

creatures is for that. I night, in 

summer and winter, here and abroad, countless 
human being- : up late, and 

eat the bread of carefulness Yes, "oh, say the 
children n even : — 

And we cannot run or leap. 
If we cared for any meadows, it were merely 

To drop down in them and sleep. 
For all day we drag our burden tiring 

Through the coal dark, undergr ound — 
Or all da] dfe of iron 

In the factories round and round." 7 

The temptation rig :: [jet it easier, if 

that might be. Are there not shorter and 
quicker methc s : Arc there not uses to which 
I can put my powei y beauty? 

May I not take some short road to competence, 
albeit honor or in: e g . inciple may be the 

26 



SECOND WEEK. — MONDAY. 

price of it ? In some way may not I turn stones 
into bread ? It is the voice of the tempter. 

But our answer must be that of our divine 
Master when He was tempted. There is a 
higher side to our nature which never must be 
sacrificed to the lower. There is a God over all 
who knoweth the wants of his children, and will 
reward adherence to principle, and trustfulness, 
and obligations to Him, not forgotten. Not by 
bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth 
out of the mouth of God, doth man live. What 
a world of truth and comfort there is in those 
lofty words, lifting us up from a life so busy, so 
engrossed, that we are, as it wore, without God 
in the world ; lifting the toilers every where above 
untrustfulness, above temptation, above sin. 

" Tell the poor young children, O my brothers, 

To look up to Him and pray : 
So the blessed One who blesseth all the others 
Will bless them another d iy."' 

O Christ, the Son of God, who for our sakes 
didst fast forty daws, and didst suffer Thyself to 
be tempted. Grant that we may not be led astray 
through any temptation ; and, since man cloth not 
live by bread alone, nourish our souls with heav- 
enly food, through Thy mercy, () our God, who art 
blessed, and dost live and govern all things, world 
without end. Amen. 

27 



SECOND WEEK. 

Wherefore do I take my flesh in my teeth and put 
my life in mine hand? Though He slay me, yet will I 
trust in Him. — Job xiii. 14, 15. 

The effort to make the Saviour part with 
His dependence upon the heavenly care did not 
succeed. The tempter was defeated by the 
manifestation of trust in God to keep and care 
for Him who kept His trust, and which would 
not sacrifice that to temporary ends. Is not the 
next form in which temptation comes perfectly 
natural ? Well, if this be so, if this is the 
trustfulness that is yours, and if indeed it is a 
confidence well bestowed, shall you not test 
and show the protecting care that is over you 
and impress all beholders with it, so that they 
will believe on you ? The tempter is at his side 
again, turning this very trustfulness into the 
temptation. Make a spectacle of your trust. 
Cast yourself down from some lofty pinnacle ; 
for written, is it not, " He shall give His angels 
charge concerning Thee, and in their hands 
they shall bear Thee up, lest at any time Thou 
dash Thy foot against a stone/' God's provi- 
dence is perfect. Tempt it. Test it. Prove 
it. Nay, he would not ; for also it was written, 
" Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God." 
28 



SECOND WEEK. — TUESDAY. 

Trustfulness is one thing ; tempting, trying 
Providence is quite another. 

Again how natural, how like to what occurs 
in man, how often repeated in our experience. 
When we have attained to a high degree of 
trustfulness, to the belief that God is over us, 
and does guide and govern us, to some high, 
exalted state, perhaps, into which such a season 
as this has brought us, that very height is made 
our snare. Is it indeed so ? then may I rely 
on Him for this and for that, may I prove, 
may I put to the test, His superintending 
providence. I may court danger, I may keep 
back some effort which I might make, I may 
be careless, idle — for will not He provide ? 

It is the perversion of the doctrine of Divine 
providence that has weakened its hold upon 
men. Truly held and rested in, it is a blessed 
truth for man, that there is One who holdeth 
us all in the hollow of His hand ; without whom 
not even a sparrow can fall to the ground ; who, 
when we have done what we can, but not until, 
when we have trusted but not tempted Him, 
careth for all the rest — this is the truth that 
is taught us here. This is the view of it for 
which our Master underwent temptation, and 
triumphed that we might also. 
29 



SECOND WEEK. — TUESDAY. 

Thou who, for forty days and nights, overmastered all the 

might 
Of Satan, and the fiercest pangs of famished appetite — 
O Saviour ! leave us not alone to wrestle with our sin, 
But aid us in these holy hours of solemn discipline. 

Let not the tempter tempt us, Lord, beyond our strength 

to bear. 
Though, in the desert of our woe, he wildly shrieks, Despair ! 
Let not our humble confidence be in Thy promise stirred, 
Nor clouds of dark distrust spring up between us and Thy 

word. 

Nor let us yet be lifted up by him, the prince of air, 

To scale presumption's dizzy height, and left to perish 

there; 
Nor on the temple's pinnacle, in our self-righteous pride, 
Be set for Thee to frown upon, and demons to deride. 

And oh ! when pleasure, power, and pomp around our 

vision swim, 
And, through the soft, enchanting mist, he bids us worship 

him, 
Assist us from the revelling sense the sorcerer's spell to 

break. 
And tread the arch-apostate down, Redeemer, for Thy sake. 

W. Croswell. 

Merciful and faithful High Priest, who didst 
deign for us to be tempted of Satan, make speed 
to aid Thy servants w r ho are assaulted by manifold 
temptations ; and as Thou knowest their several 
infirmities, let each one find thee mighty to save, 
who livest and reigneth with the Father and the 
Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen. 
30 



SECOND WEEK. 



The Lord is good to them that wait for Him, to the 
soul that seeketh Him. It is good that a man should 
both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. 
Lamentations iii. 25, 26. 

He that believeth shall not make haste. 

Isaiah xxviii. 16. 

Thwarted again in the attempt to make the 
Saviour yield to temptation, evil tries once 
more. 

The Son of God, the King of all the king- 
doms of the earth, possessed of infinite power, 
one day to gather them all to thyself, will you 
not do so at once ? Why wait all these years 
for thy truth to slowly win its way ? Why not 
use your power and reign — reign now ? All 
these kingdoms of the world which you see, 
and the glory of them, lo ! you can have them 
if you will. Nay, not for an instant was it to 
be thought of. It would have been the love of 
power and the impatience which could not wait ; 
it would not have been the Father's will, in the 
Father's way ; for only by slow and painful 
means, by suffering and death, by agony and 
by the cross, were these to be won. It would 
have been falling down and worshipping the 
3' 



SECOND WEEK. — WEDNESDAY. 

Evil One as having the world to give. And 
Jesus saith unto him, " Get thee hence, Satan : 
for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord 
thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve." 

The love of power, and the unwillingness to 
wait for that which is to come — O, are there 
any temptations more common to man than 
these ? How many a heart has been made to 
ache because some one had power, and loved to 
make his neighbor see and feel it. Impatience 
at the delay in some result that we think might 
just as well more quickly come — who has not 
felt its unrestful, untrustful toils ? It shall be 
yours now if you will take measures that you 
ought not, if you will make your homage to 
evil. Nay, in the service of God ours too may 
be the way of the cross, and to stretch on 
through the years. If the Master waited and 
still waits, shall not the disciple ? 

A strong and mailed angel, 
With eves serene and deep, 

Unwearied and unwearying, 
His patient watch doth keep. 

A strong and mailed angel, 
In the midnight and the day, 

Walking with me at my labor, 
Kneeling by me when I pray. 
32 



SECOND WEEK. WEDNESDAY. 

Low are the words he speaketh : — 

" Young dreamer, God is great ! 
'Tis glorious to suffer, 
'Tis majesty to wait ! " 

O angel of endurance ! 

O saintly and sublime ! 
White are the armed legions 

That tread the halls of time ! 

Blessed and brave and holy, 

The olive on my heart, 
Baptized with thy baptizing, 

Shall never more depart. 

O strong and mailed angel ! 

Thy trailing robes I see ! 
Read other souls the lesson 

So meekly read to me. 

Still chant the same grand anthem, 

The beautiful and great, — 
" Tis glorious to suffer, 

'Tis majesty to wait ! n 

L. N. F. 

O eternal God ! who seest my weakness, grant 
that I may with patience wait for what I hope for, 
and by patient continuance in well-doing seek and 
at last obtain glory and honor and immortality, 
through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. 



33 



SECOND WEEK. 



STijurstrag* 

When ye fast, be not, as the hypocrites, of a sad coun- 
tenance : for they disfigure their faces, that they may appear 
unto men to fast. Verily I say unto you, They have their 
reward. But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, 
and wash thy face ; that thou appear not unto men to fast, 
but unto thy Father which is in secret : and thy Father, 
which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly. 

St. Matthew vi. 16, 17, 18. 

Fasting, if it be considered in itself, without 
relation to spiritual ends, is a duty nowhere en- 
joined or counselled. But Christianity hath to 
do with it, as it may be made an instrument 
of the spirit by subduing the lusts of the flesh 
or removing any hindrances to religion. And 
it hath been practised by all ages of the Church, 
and advised in order to three ministries : 1, to 
prayer ; 2, to mortification of bodily lusts ; 3, 
to repentance. 

Fasting, as it is instrumental to prayer, must 
be attended with other aids of the like virtue 
and efficacy ; such as are removing for the time 
all worldly cares and secular businesses, and 
therefore our blessed Saviour infolds these 
parts within the same caution. " Take heed, 
lest your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting 
and drunkenness, and the cares of this world, 
34 



SECOND WEEK. — THURSDAY. 

and that day overtake you unawares." To 
which add alms, for upon the wings of fasting 
and alms holy prayer infallibly mounts up to 
heaven. 

Fasting designed for repentance must be 
ever joined w T ith an extreme care that wc fast 
from sin ; for there is no greater folly or un- 
decency in the world than to commit that for 
which I am now judging and condemning my- 
self. This is the best fast, and the other may 
serve to promote the interest of this, by increas- 
ing the disaffection to it, and multiplying argu- 
ments against it. 

When fasting is an act of mortification, that is, 
is intended to subdue a bodily lust, it must not 
be a sudden, sharp, evident fast, but a state of 
fasting, a diet of fasting. Fasting alone will 
not cure this devil, though it helps much toward 
it ; but assisted by all the proper instruments of 
remedy, what it is unable to do alone, in com- 
pany with other instruments and God's blessing 
upon them, it may effect. 

All fasting, for whatsoever end it be under- 
taken, must be clone without any opinion of 
the necessity of the thing itself, without cen- 
suring others, with all humility in order to the 
proper end, and just as a man takes physic, of 
35 



SECOND WEEK. — THURSDAY. 

which no man hath reason to be proud and no 
man thinks it necessary,, but because he is in 
sickness, or in danger and disposition to it. 

Jeremy Taylor. 

Welcome, deare feast of Lent : who loves not thee, 
He k es n I Temperance or Authoritie. 

-'d of passion. 
The Scriptures bid us fast : the Church says, nc 
Give to thy Mother what thou wouldst allow 
To ev'ry Corporation. 

It's true, we cannot reach Christ's forti'th day : 
E> part of that religious way 

We cannot reach our Saviour's puritie. 
Yet are we bid. * k Be holy ev'n as He." 
In both let's do our 

Yet, Lord, instruct us to improve our :': 
By sinne and taking such repast 

As may our faults control : 
That ev'ry man may re veil at his doore, 
- in his parlour : banquetting the poore, 
And among those his soul. 

George Herbert. 

O Lord, who for our sake didst fast forty days 
and forty nigh"- grre us grace to use such a 
nence that our flesh being subdued to the Spirit, 
we may ever obey thy godly motions in righteous- 
ness and true holiness to thy honor and glory, who 
livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy 
Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen. 

36 



SECOND WEEK. 



jFrttrajj* 

And when He was come into the house, His disciples 
asked Him privately, Why could not we cast him out? And 
He said unto them, This kind can come forth by nothing, 
but by prayer and fasting. — St. Mark ix. 28, 29. 

All fasting is to be used with prudence and 
charity ; for there is no end to which fasting 
serves but may be obtained by other instru- 
ments : and therefore it must at no hand be 
made an instrument of scruple, or become an 
enemy to our health, or be imposed upon per- 
sons that are sick or aged, or to whom it is 
in any sense uncharitable, such as are wearied 
travellers ; or to whom in the whole kind of it 
it is useless, such as are poor people and little 
children. But in these cases the Church hath 
made provision, and inserted caution into her 
laws; and they are to be reduced to practice 
according to custom and the sentence of pru- 
dent persons, with great latitude, and without 
Iliceness and curiosity; having this in our first 
care, that we secure our virtue, and next that 
we secure our health, that we may the better 
exercise the labors of virtue, lest out of too 
much austerity we bring ourselves to that con- 
37 



SECOND WEEK. FRIDAY. 

dition that it be necessary to be indulgent to 
softness, ease, and extreme tenderness. 

Fasting is not to be commended as a duty, 
but as an instrument ; and, in that sense, no 
man can reprove it or undervalue it, but he 
that knows neither spiritual arts nor spiritual 
necessities. It is called the nourishment of 
prayer, the restraint of lust, the wings of the 
soul, the diet of angels, the instrument of 
humility and self-denial, the purification of the 
spirit. Jeremy Taylor. 

Lord, I have fasted, I have prayed, 
And sackcloth has my girdle been ; 

To purge my soul, I have essayed 
With hunger blank and vigil keen ; 

O God of mercy ! why am I 

Still haunted by the self I fly? 

Sackcloth is a girdle good, 

Oh ! bind it round thee still ; 
Fasting, it is angel's food, 

And Jesus loved the night air chill ; 
Yet think not prayer and fast were given 
To make one step 'twixt earth and heaven. 

John Hexry Newman. 

O holy and Eternal Saviour, who didst for our 
sake fast forty days and forty nights, teach me so 
to do this act of discipline that it may become an 
38 



SECOND WEEK. FRIDAY. 

act of religion. Enable me to deny my appetites, 
and accustom myself to the yoke, that I may have 
no desires but of Thee, and that the outward man 
may by degrees resign itself to the entire dominion 
of the soul, and may pass from vanity to piety, from 
weakness to ghostly strength, from darkness to light, 
until both body and soul shall reign with Thee in 
the glories of eternity, O Holy and Eternal Saviour. 
Amen. 

39 



SECOND WEEK. 



SaturUag. 

Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the 
bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to 
let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? 
Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou 
bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou 
seest the naked, that thou cover him ; and that thou hide 
not thyself from thine own flesh ? 

Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and 
thine health shall spring forth speedily : and thy right- 
eousness shall go before thee ; the glory of the Lord 
shall be thy rereward. — Isaiah lviii. 6, 7, 8. 

Fast, that you may give to the poor what 
you deny yourself ; deny yourself, that you may 
give ; contemn luxuries, or at times even com- 
forts, that you may give ; give up from time to 
time enjoyments ; think what luxuries you may 
abandon, what superfluities you may part with, 
what habitual self-indulgences, if so be, you 
may break off ; how you may diminish your ex- 
penses upon self, and enlarge your charity to 
your brethren, and in them " lend unto the 
Lord." 

Relinquish what you wish, and practise what 
you wish not ; make it your object so to do, in 
order to school yourselves and have the habit 
of self-denial. E. B. Pusey. 

40 



SECOND WEEK. — SATURDAY. 



Is this a fast, to keep 

The larder lean 

And clean 
From fats of meats and sheep ? 
Is it to quit the dish 

Of flesh, yet still 

To fill 
The platter high with fish? 

Is it to fast an hour, 

Or ragg'd to go, 

Or show 
A downcast look and sour? 
No : Tis a fast, to dole 

Thy sheaf of wheat 

And meat 
Unto the hungry soul. 

It is to fast from strife, 

From old debate 

And hate ; 
To circumcise thy life ; 

To starve thy sin, 

Not bin ; 
And that's to keep thy Lent ! 

ROBERT 1 1 KR RICK. 

We beseech Thee, O Lord, to sanctify our fasts, 
and mercifully to grant us forgiveness of all our 
sins, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. 

4i 



Wtjt Secontr ^untrajr in ILent 

This is the will of God, even your sanctification. 

i Thessalonians iv. 3. 

As Christ was ready to submit His will to 
that of the Father, so must we be ready if we 
would be truly followers of our Master. Our 
wills are a mysterious, heaven-descended power 
planted by God in our hearts, that we may be 
free agents, coming to Him by choice and not 
by compulsion. As Tennyson has beautifully 
said, — 

" Our wills are ours, we know not how ; 
Our wills are ours — to make them Thine." 

Many things come into our lives of which we 
cannot see the reason ; we are not suffered to 
do this or that, opportunities which we deem 
most valuable are taken from us, work which 
we long for is denied to us, crosses are laid 
upon us, troubles and difficulties ; and we are 
tempted to say, " All things do not work 
together for good to them who love God." 
While thoughts like these take possession of 
us we cannot accept God's will. 

But these thoughts arise from misconception 
only. What is God's will for us ? " This is 
42 



THE SECOND SUNDAY IN LENT. 

the will of God, even your sanctification." It 
is not our earthly good towards which God 
works ; our earthly good may or may not be a 
part of His plan, but it is only a means, and not 
an end. The end towards which God shapes 
His dealings with us is our ultimate holim 
our purity, our perfection. How often we look 
back to days long past, and see how good and 
right was the loss or the disappointment that 
we then deemed so hard. In the light of the 
present we should choose just the same for 
ourselves; and yet, acknowledging this, how 
hard we still find it to accept the will of God 
in the difficulty that is now pressing upon us. 

Trust Me, my child ; lean thou upon My 
will ; thou canst not see the windings of the 
path ; I know each step, and I will guide thee 
right. Why wouldst thou turn aside and leave 
Me thus ? Strength is not found in self, nor 
peace in pride. Take thou My choice, and do 
thy Father's will, till thou at last shalt find His 
will is thine ! M. R Whiting. 

Lord my God, do Thou Thy holy will — 

I will lie still. 

1 will not stir, lest I forsake Thine arm, 

And break the charm 
Which lulls me, clinging to my Father's breast, 
In perfect rest. 

43 



THE SECOND SUNDAY IN LENT. 

O Father ! not my will, but Thine be done ! 

So spake the Son. 
Be this our charm, mellowing earth's rude noise 

Of griefs and joys, 
That we may cling forever to Thy breast 

In perfect rest. 

J. Keble. 

O Lord our God, who alone makest us to dwell in 
safety, refresh with quiet sleep this night those who 
are weaned with the labors of the day, and merci- 
fully protect from harm all who put their trust in 
Thee ; that lying dow T n in peace to take our rest w r e 
may fear no evil, but confidently give ourselves into 
Thy holy keeping, through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
Amen. 

44 



®l)trb tDcck. 

fHontiag* 

And he said to them all, If any man will come after 
Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and 
follow Me. — St. Luke ix. 23. 

Unto many this seemeth an hard speech, 
" Deny thyself, take up thy cross, and follow 
Jesus." But in the cross is salvation, in the 
cross is life, in the cross is protection against 
our enemies, in the cross is infusion of heav- 
enly sweetness, in the cross is strength of 
mind, in the cross is joy of spirit, in the cross 
the height of virtue, in the cross the perfection 
of sanctity. Take up, therefore, thy cross and 
follow Jesus, and thou shalt go into life ever- 
lasting. He went before bearing 1 1 is en 

Go where thou wilt, seek whatsoever thou 
wilt, thou shalt not find a higher way above, 
nor a safer way below, than the way of the holv 
cross. 

Dispose and order all things according to thy 
45 



THIRD WEEK. MONDAY. 

will and judgment, yet thou shalt ever find that 
of necessity thou must suffer somewhat, either 
willingly or against thy will, and so thou shalt 
ever find the cross. For either thou shalt feel 
pain in thy body, or in thy soul thou shalt suffer 
tribulation of spirit. 

Sometimes thou shalt be forsaken of God. 
Sometimes thou shalt be troubled by thy neigh- 
bors, and what is more, oftentimes thou shalt 
be wearisome to thyself. 

No man hath so cordial a feeling of the 
Passion of Christ as he who hath suffered the 
like himself. 

The cross, therefore, is always ready and 
everywhere w r aits for thee. 

Thou canst not escape it whithersoever thou 
runnest, for wheresoever thou goest, thou carriest 
thyself with thee, and shalt ever find thyself. 

If thou bear the cross cheerfully, it will bear 
thee, and lead thee to the desired end. 

If thou bear it unwillingly, thou makest for 
thyself a new burden and increasest thy load ; 
and yet, notwithstanding, thou must bear it. 

Christ's whole life was a cross and a martyr- 
dom, and dost thou seek rest and joy for thyself ? 

This meek and patient submission under 
suffering, however, is not the power of man, 
46 



THIRD WEEK. MONDAY. 

but it is the grace of Christ. If thou look to 
thyself, thou shalt be able of thyself to accom- 
plish nothing of this kind. But if thou trust in 
the Lord, fortitude shall be given thee from 
Heaven, and the world and the flesh shall be 
made subject to thy command. 

O that thou wert worthy to suffer something 
for the Name of Jesus ! How great glory 
would remain unto thyself, what joy would 
arise to all God's saints, how great edification 
also to thy neighbor. Thomas a Kempis. 

" Every bird that upward springs, 
Bears the cross upon his wings ; 
We without it cannot rise 
Upward to our native skies. 

Every ship that meets the waves 
By the cross their fury braves ; 
We without it cannot rise 
Upward to our native skies." 

O Lord Jesus Christ, our sympathizing Saviour, 
who for man didst bear the agony and the cross, 
draw thou near to thy suffering servants in their 
pain of body or trouble of mind (especially n.n.), 
hallow all their crosses in this life, and crown them 
hereafter where all tears are wiped away, where 
with the Father and the Holy Ghost He ever 
liveth and reigneth, world without end. Amen. 
47 



THIRD WEEK. 



Ettestrag. 

And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for 
thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. 
Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infir- 
mities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 

Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, 
in necessities, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's 
sake : for when I am weak, then am I strong. 

2 Corinthians xii. 9, 10. 

Why do I not thus argue with myself in my 
sufferings ? Is it not the hand of my good 
God that lies heavy upon me ? Can I but ac- 
knowledge Him to be a God of infinite wisdom 
and infinite mercy ? If of infinite wisdom, how 
can He but know what is best for me ? If of 
infinite mercy, how can He but do what He 
knows to be best ? And if it be best for me to 
suffer, why should I not be cheerful in suffer- 
ing ? To be patient under a heavy cross is no 
small praise, to be contented is more, but to 
be cheerful is the highest pitch of Christian 
fortitude. 

The Holy Ghost would not have appropriated 
to Himself the title of " Comforter," and "God 
of all Comfort," if any mortal power could be 
able to do this great work without Him. 

Bishop Hall. 

48 



THIRD WEEK. — TUESDAY. 

It is not heavy, agonizing woe, 

Bearing me down with hopeless, crushing load, 

Not reputation lost, nor friends betrayed — 

That such is not my cross I thank my God. 

It is not sickness with her withering hand, 

Keeping me low upon a couch of pain, 

Longing each morning for the weary night, — 

At night, for weary day to come again. 

Mine is a daily cross of petty cares, 

Of daily duties pressing on my heart, 

Of little troubles hard to reconcile, 

Of inward struggles — overcome in part. 

My feet are weary in their daily round, 

My heart is weary of its daily care, 

My sinful nature often doth rebel ; 

I pray for grace my daily cross to bear. 

It is not heavy, Lord, yet oft I pine ; 

It is not heavy, but 'tis everywhere. 

By day and night each hour my cross I bear ; 

I dare not lay it down — Thou keep'st it there. 

I dare not lay it down, I only ask 

That, taking up my daily cross, I may 

Follow my Master humbly, step by step, 

Through clouds and darkness unto perfect day. 

Anon. 

O Christ, our Lord and our Eternal Redeemer, 
grant unto us such fellowship in thy sufferir 
that, filled with Thine Holy Spirit, we may sub- 
due the flesh to the spirit, and the spirit to Thee, 
and at last attain to the glory of Thy Resin: 
tion, through Thy mercy, O our God, who art 
blessed and dost live and govern all things, world 
without end. Amen. 49 



THIRD WEEK. 



But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross 
of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified 
unto me, and I unto the world. — Galatians vi. 14. 

What is it that Christ has left to be His 
symbol in the world, that we put upon our 
churches, that we wear upon our hearts, that 
stands forth so perpetually as the symbol of 
Christ's life ? Is it a throne, from which a ruler 
utters his decrees ? Is it a mountain-top, upon 
which some rapt seer sits, communing with him- 
self and with the voices around him, and gath- 
ering great truth into his soul, and delighting 
in it ? No, not the throne, and not the moun- 
tain-top. It is the cross. 

Oh, my brethren, that the cross should be the 
great symbol of our highest measure, that that 
which stands for consecration, that that which 
stands for the divine statement that a man does 
not live for himself, and that a man loses him- 
self when he does live for himself — that that 
should be the symbol of our religion, and the 
great sign and token of our faith ! What sort 
of Christians are we that go about asking for 
things of this life first, thinking that it shall 
make us prosperous to be Christians, and then 
a little higher, asking for the things that per- 
50 



THIRD WEEK. — WEDNESDAY. 

tain to the eternal prosperity ; when the great 
Master, who leaves us the great law, in whom 
our external life is spiritually set forth, has as 
His great symbol the cross, the cross, the sign 
of consecration and obedience ? 

It is not simply suffering too. Christ does 
not stand primarily for suffering. Suffering is 
an accident. It does not matter whether you 
and I suffer. " Not enjoyment and not sor- 
row " is our life ; not sorrow any more than en- 
joyment, but obedience and duty. If duty brings 
sorrow, let it bring sorrow. It did bring sorrow 
to the Christ, because it was impossible for a 
man to serve the absolute righteousness in this 
world, and not to sorrow. If it had brought 
joy and glory and triumph, if it had been greeted 
at its entrance, and applauded on the way, He 
would have been as truly the consecrated soul 
that He was in the days when, over a road that 
was marked with the blood of His footprints, He 
found His way up at last to the torturing cross. 

It is not suffering, it is obedience. It is not 
pain, it is consecration of life. It is the joy of 
service that makes the life of Christ, and for us 
to serve Him, serving fellow-man and God, — as 
He served fellow-man and God, — whether it 
bring pain or joy, if we can only get out of our 
5 1 



THIRD WEEK. WEDNESDAY. 

souls the thought that it matters not if we are 
happy or sorrowful, if only we are dutiful and 
faithful, and brave and strong, then we shall 
be in the atmosphere, we should be in the great 
company of the Christ. Bishop Brooks. 

'Tis well to watch all through these lonely hours 
In the sad garden and beneath the cross ; 

'Tis well to give up something for our Lord, 
Who gave up all and counted life a loss. 

Yet we may fill these quiet weeks of prayer 
With sweetest charities for others' need ; 

With deeds and words of earnest, Christlike love ; 
Then shall we do God's work in every deed. 

With gentle home-work, doing all for love, 

Making some life the better for our own ; 
Smoothing some path for other feet to tread, 

Cheering some heart that has to work alone. 
So shall we live nearer to our Lord, 

So shall we labor through these Lenten hours ; 
Till Easter suns shall hail the golden day, 

And joyful hands shall wreathe the Easter flowers. 

Anon. 

O Lord Almighty, the only begotten Son of the 
Father, loose us from the bonds of our sins, and fill 
us with all spiritual gifts, that so, Thy grace pre- 
venting and following us, we may be Thy faithful 
servants here, and be numbered with Thy saints in 
glory hereafter, through Thy mercy, O our God, who 
art blessed, and dost live and govern all things, 
world without end. Amen. 
52 



THIRD WEEK. 



£f)urstiag* 

As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I 
also sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanc- 
tify Myself, that they also might be sanctified through the 
truth. 

I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the 
world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. 

St. John xvii. iS, 19. 15. 

Christ by suffering was sanctified, or set 
apart, for the service of God in the world, and 
His servants must follow the same path. This 
consecration to God's service is not to be found 
by leaving the world, but by remaining in it. 
The disciples may have thought that they would 
be most truly set apart for holiness if they served 
among the angel host, who praise God day and 
night in His temple, but their Master was wis< r 
than they were. There is no victory without 
warfare. The world is the field where alone the 
battle can be fought. 

There is a search for holiness among all the 
nations of the world ; none are so indifferent 
that they have not some aspirations towards 
holy things. But it is Christ who teaches us 
that holiness is found in duty. It is not in pen- 
ance and in pilgrimage, in alms-giving and de- 
53 



THIRD WEEK. — THURSDAY. 

votion, that holiness lies ; the world is set in 
our own hearts, and unless we could divorce 
ourselves from our very souls, we can never 
escape from the world as long as we live. 

Thank God, that the higher life has been 
made possible for us, as we pursue our earthly 

lgs ; that it is not the cloister that m 
the saint. Only one power can make a saint, 
and that is the indwelling grace of God. Each 
act, each part of our daily lives, may be made a 
stepping-stone. M. B. Whiting. 

The parish priest 

Of Austerlitz 
Climbed up in a high church steeple 

To be nearer God, 

So that he might hand 
His word down to his people. 

And in sermon script 

He daily wrote 
What he thought was sent from heaven. 

And he dropt this down 

On his people's heads, 
Two times one day in seven. 

In his age God said. 

•• Come down and die ' *' 
And he cried out from the steeple, 

88 Where art thou, Lord? " 

And the Lord replied. 
81 Down here among my people ! r 



Anon. 



54 



THIRD WEEK. — THURSDAY. 

O Lord, without whom our labor is but lost, and 
with whom Thy little ones go forth as the mighty, 
be present to all works in Thy Church which are 
undertaken according to Thy will, and grant to Thy 
laborers a pure intention, patient faith, sufficient 
success upon earth, and the bliss of serving Thee in 
heaven, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 



55 



THIRD WEEK. 



jFrilrarj* 

And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what 
wilt thou have me to do ? — Acts ix. 6. 

If any man will do his will, he shall know of the 
doctrine. — St. John vii. 17. 

In God's spiritual universe there are no fa- 
vorites of heaven who can attain knowledge 
and spiritual wisdom apart from obedience. It 
is not a rare, partial condescension of God, 
arbitrary and causeless, which gives knowledge 
of the Truth to some, and shuts it out from 
others ; but a vast, universal, glorious law. The 
light lighteth every man that cometh into the 
world. "If any man will do His will he shall 
know." You ask bitterly, like Pontius Pilate, 
" What is Truth ? " In such an hour what 
remains ? I reply, Obedience. Leave those 
thoughts for the present. Act, — be merciful 
and gentle, — honest; force yourself to abound 
in little services ; try to do good to others ; be 
true to the duty that you know. That must 
be right, whatever else is uncertain. And by 
all the laws of the human heart, by the word 
of God, you shall not be left to doubt. Do 
56 



THIRD WEEK. FRIDAY. 

that much of the will of God which is plain to 
you. You shall know of the doctrine whether 
it be of God. F. W. Robertson. 

It is a happy thing for us that this is really 
all we have to concern ourselves about — what 
is to do next. No man can do the second 
thing. He can do the first. 

George MacDonald. 

From an old English parsonage, down by the sea, 
There came in the twilight a message to me ; 
Its quaint Saxon legend, deeply engraven, 
Hath, as it seems to me, teaching for heaven ; 
And all through the hours the quiet words ring 
Like a low inspiration — " Doe ye nexte thynge." 

Many a questioning, many a fear, 
Many a doubt, hath its quieting here ; 
Moment by moment, let down from heaven, 
Time, opportunity, guidance, are given. 
Fear not to-morrow, child of the King, 
Trust them with Jesus — M Doe ye nexte thynge." 

Anon. 

O God, the sovereign good of the soul, who 
requirest the hearts of all Thy children, deliver us 
from all sloth in Thy work, all coldness in Thy 
cause ; and grant us by looking unto Thee to re- 
kindle our love, and by waiting upon Thee to 
renew our strength, through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
Amen. 

57 



THIRD WEEK. 



i&aturtmg* 

Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to 
be seen of them : otherwise ye have no reward of your 
Father which is in heaven. 

Therefore, when thou doest thine alms, do not sound 
a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the syna- 
gogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of 
men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. 

But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand 
know what thy right hand doeth : 

That thine alms may be in secret : and thy Father 
which seeth in secret Himself shall reward thee openly. 

St. Matthew 7 vi. 1-4. 

Love is communicative as fire, as busy and 
as active, and it hath four twin daughters, ex- 
treme like each other. Their names are: 1, 
Mercy ; 2, Beneficence, or Well-doing ; 3, Liber- 
ality ; 4, Alms, which by a special privilege 
hath obtained to be called after the mother's 
name, and is commonly called charity. 

Give, looking for nothing again, that is, with- 
out consideration of future advantages ; give to 
children, to old men, to the unthankful, and the 
dying, and to those you shall never see again ; 
for else your alms or courtesy is not charity, 
but traffic and merchandise ; and be sure that 
you omit not to relieve the needs of your enemy 
58 



THIRD WEEK. SATURDAY. 

and the injurious ; for so possibly you may win 
him to yourself ; but do you intend the win- 
ning him to God. Trust not your alms to 
intermedial, uncertain, and under dispensers ; 
by which rule is not only intended the secur- 
ing your alms in the right channel, but the 
humility of your person, and that which the 
apostle calls the labor of love. And if you 
converse in hospitals and almshouses, and min- 
ister with your own hand what your heart 
hath first decreed, you will find your heart en- 
deared and made familiar with the needs and 
with the persons of the poor, those excellent 
images of Christ. 

If thou hast no money, yet thou must have 
mercy, and art bound to pity the poor, and 
pray for them, and throw thy holy desires and 
devotions into the treasure of the Church ; and 
if thou doest what thou art able, be it little or 
great, corporal or spiritual, the charity of alms, 
or the charity of prayers, a cup of wine, or a 
cup of water, if it be but love to the brethren, 
or a desire to help all or any of Christ's poor, 
it shall be accepted according to what a man 
hath, not according to what he hath not. For 
love is all this, and all the other command- 
ments ; and it will express itself where it can ; 
59 



THIRD WEEK. — SATURDAY. 

and where it cannot, yet it is love still, and it 

is also sorry that it cannot. 

Jeremy Taylor. 

That is no true alms which the hand can hold ; 
He gives nothing but worthless gold 

Who gives from a sense of duty : 
But he who gives a slender mite, 
And gives to that which is out of sight, 

That thread of the all-sustaining Beauty 
Which runs through all and doth all unite, — 
The hand cannot clasp the whole of his alms, 
The heart outstretches its eager palms, 
For a god goes with it and makes it store 
To the soul that was starving in darkness before. 
The Holy Supper is kept indeed, 
In whatso we share with another's need, — 
Not that which we give, but what we share, — 
For the gift without the giver is bare ; 
Who bestows himself with his alms feeds three, 
Himself, his hungering neighbor, and Me. 

J. R. Lowell. 

Almighty God, from whom all good things do 
come, give Thy grace, we humbly beseech Thee, to 
those whom Thou hast intrusted with riches, that 
they as faithful stewards may dispense them in the 
service of Thy kingdom for the increase thereof ; to 
the honor and praise of Him, who, though He was 
rich, yet for our sakes became poor, Thy Son Jesus 
Christ our Lord. Amen. 
60 



Wift Efjtrli Sunlrag in Urnt 

When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his 
goods are in peace : but when a stronger than he shall 
come upon him, and overcome him, he taketh from him 
all his armour wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils. 

St. Luke xi. 21, 22. 

We dwell too much, I think, upon some of 
these things ; we cannot dwell too much, per- 
haps, but we dwell out of proportion, it may be, 
on the thought of Jesus Christ, the comforter 
of sorrow. He is the comforter of sorrow, for 
He knew and He knows what sorrow is. In 
His own crucifixion, in that which came before 
His crucifixion, He knew the suffering of this 
earthly life. There is no human being who 
ever has known the misery of man as Jesus 
knows it, and so He comes to all sorrows with 
tender consolation. God grant, God grant He 
may come to any of you who have come into 
these doors to-day with a sorrow, with a fear, 
with a dread upon your hearts, with souls that 
are wrong, with bodies that are suffering ! 
I grant that the Christ may comfort you — 
may comfort you ! But not only that. Shall 
there be no Christ for those who for the mo- 
ment seem to need no comfort ? Shall there be 
61 



THE THIRD SUNDAY IX LENT. 

no Christ for the strong men who have before 
them the duties of their life, and who want the 
strength with which to do them ? Shall there 
be no Christ for the young men, the young 
men standing in danger, but also standing in 
such magnificent and splendid chances? It is 
great to think of Christ standing by the sorrow- 
ing and comforting them. It is great, — we 
will not say it is greater, — it is very great, 
when by the side of the young man just enter- 
ing into life there stands the Christ, saying to 
his soul, with the voice that he cannot fail to 
hear : " Be pure, be strong, be wise, be inde- 
pendent ; rejoice in Me and My appreciation. 
Let the world go, if it is necessary that the 
world should go. Serve the world, but do not 
be the servant of the world. Make the world 
your servant by helping the world in every 
way in which you can minister to its life. Be 
brave, be strong, be manly by My strength/' 
Oh ! young man, if you can hear the Christ 
speak to you like that behind all the traditions 
of the street, behind the teaching of the books, 
behind all that the wise and successful men say 
to you, behind all the cynics and sneerers say 
to you, the great, strong, healthy voice of 
Jesus Christ, who believes in man because He 
62 



THE THIRD SUNDAY IN LENT. 

has known man filled with divinity, and be- 
lieves in you because He knows that which 
has been set before you by your Father in the 
sending out of your life, and who longs, and 
prays, and waits to strengthen you, that you 
may do your work, that you may escape from 
sin, that you may live your life, this is the great 
figure of the present Christ that Christianity 
can produce. Bishop Brooks. 

Oh, joy of all our joys ! to be bereft 

Of our false power to make the world so dear ; 

Oh, joy of all our joys ! to be thus left, 

In our wild years, with none but Jesus near. • 

How sweetly, then, shall Lent's few Sundays shock 
The sadness which itself hath now grown sweet, 

Like the soft striking of an old church clock. 
Making the heart of summer midnight beat. 

How sweetly now shall this most holy gloom 
Gather and double on my chasten'd heart, 

Girdling with dark, bright folds the Garden Tomb 
Where Lent and I, like Christian friends, shall part. 

F. \V. Faber. 

O God, who knowest us to be set in the midst 
of so many and great dangers that by reason of the 
frailty of our nature, we cannot always stand upright, 
grant to us such strength and protection as may 
support us in all dangers, and carry us through all 
temptations, through fesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

63 



Jburtl) toedi. 



O thou that hearest prayer, unto Thee shall all flesh 
come. — Psalm lxv. 2. 

Consider the dignity of this — to be admitted 
into so near converse with the highest Majesty. 
Were there nothing to follow, no answer at 
all, prayer pays itself in the excellency of its 
nature, and the sweetness that the soul finds in 
it. Poor, wretched man, to be admitted into 
heaven while he is on earth, and then to come 
and speak his mind freely to the Lord of heaven 
and earth as his friend, as his Father ; to empty 
all his complaints into His bosom ; when wea- 
ried with the miseries and follies of the world, 
to refresh his soul in his God. Where there is 
anything of His love, this is a privilege of the 
highest sweetness ; for they who love find much 
delight in discoursing together, and count all 
hours short, and think the day runs too fast 
that is so spent ; and they who are much in 
64 



FOURTH WEEK. MONDAY. 

this exercise, the Lord doth impart His secrets 
much to them. Bishop Lbighton. 

Now are the days of humblest prayer, 
When consciences to God lie bare, 
And mercy most delights to spare. 
Oh ! hearken when we cry, 

Chastise us with Thy fear ; 

Yet, Father ! in the multitude 

Of Thy compassions hear ! 

Now is the season, wisely long, 
Of sadder thought and graver song. 
When ailing souls grow well and strong. 
Oh ! hearken when we cry. 

Chastise us with Thy fear ; 

Yet, Father ! in the multitude 

Of Thy compassions hear ! 

The feast of penance! oh, so bright 
With true conversion's heavenly light, 
Like sunrise after stormy night ! 
Oh ! hearken when we cry. 

Chastise us with Thy fear ; 
Yet, Father! in the multitude 
Of Thy compassions hear ! 

We who have loved the world must learn 
Upon that world our backs to turn : 
And with the love ofGod to burn. 
Oh ! hearken when we cry. 

Chastise us with Thy fear J 

Yet, Father! in the multitude 

Of Thy compassions hear! 

F. YV. Faker. 
65 



FOURTH WEEK. — MONDAY. 

Eternal God, who committest to us the swift 
and solemn trust of life, since we know not what a 
day may bring forth, but only that the hour. for 
serving Thee is always present, may we wake to 
the instant claims of Thy holy will ; not waiting 
for to-morrow, but yielding to-day. Lay to rest, by 
the persuasion of Thy Spirit, the resistance of our 
passion, indolence, or fear. Consecrate, with Thy 
presence, the way our feet may go, and the humblest 
work will shine and the roughest places be made 
plain. Lift us above unrighteous anger and mis- 
trust unto faith and hope and charity, by a simple 
and steadfast reliance on Thy sure will ; and so 
may we be modest in our time of wealth, patient 
under disappointment, ready for danger, serene in 
death. In all things draw us to the mind of Christ, 
that Thy lost image may be traced again, and Thou 
mayest own us at one with Him and Thee. 

Martineau. 

66 



FOURTH WEEK. 



JTitcjEfoag. 

But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, 
and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father 
which is in secret ; and thy Father which seeth in secret 
will reward thee openly. — St. Matthew vi. 6. 

Prayer is the peace of our spirit, the still- 
ness of our thoughts, the evenness of our recol- 
lection, the seat of our meditations, the rest of 
our cares, and the calm of our tempest. Prayer 
is the issue of a quiet mind, of untroubled 
thoughts ; it is the daughter of charity, and the 
sister of meekness. He that prays to God with 
a troubled and discomposed spirit is like him 
that retires into a battle to meditate, and sets 
up his closet in the out-quarters of an army, 
and chooses a frontier garrison to be wise in. 

For so have I seen a lark soaring upwards, 
beaten back by the sighings of an eastern wind, 
and descending more at every breath of the 
tempest than it could recover by the libration 
and frequent weighing of his wings, till the little 
creature was forced to sit down and pant, and 
stay till the storm was over ; and then it made 
a prosperous flight, and did rise and sing as if it 
had learned music and motion from an angel. 

[rrbmy Taylor. 

6 7 



FOURTH WEEK. — 771? 

"Down, slothful heart! how darest thou say, 

• ZiV. - :: s: ::: :: zny: ' 

Behold the Lord's own bounteous showers 

Keep their appointed hours. 

The forenoon saw the Spirit fii 

On orphan'd saints in glory bm 

At noontide hour, Saint Peter s 

The sheet let down, heavenward all earth to draw : 

At eventide, when good Cornelius kneeled 

Upon his fasting day, an angel shone revealed. 

Untired is He in me: 

T/.er. v're ~ :: :h:u :: i-'-: : 

He says not, ■ Yesterday I gave, 

Wilt thou forever era 

He every ~\:~;±z~. -::5 :: ^;.e. 

Thine hours of prayer, upon the cross 

To Him were hours of woe and shame and loss 

5::_r^ir.v. ;.: n::rn : i: z: :z. pierced '-2.7.15 izi fee: : 
At eve, fierce pains of death for thee He counted sweet. 

The blue sky o'er the green earth bends, 
All night the dew descends ; 
The green earth to the blue heaven's 
":s : :s:rr. 5;:re - is il'. ny : 
Earth answers heaven ; the holy race 
Should answer his unfailing grace. 
Then smile, low world, in spite or scorn, 
We to our God will kneel, ere prime of morn ; 
The third, the sixth, the ninth, — each passion hour, — 
We with high praise will keep, as He with gifts of power/ 7 
65 



FOURTH WEEK. TUESDAY. 

O Lord Jesus Christ, who, in the sorrow of Thy 
soul, didst fall down upon Thy face in prayer, give 
us grace, that we likewise in all our sorrow may be- 
take ourselves with humble and earnest prayer to 
our heavenly Father for aid and comfort and relief. 
Hear us, O Saviour Jesus Christ, for Thy name's 
sake, who livest with the Father and the Holy 
Ghost, world without end. Amen. 



69 



FOURTH WEEK. 



Be careful for nothing ; but in every thing by prayer 
and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be 
made known unto God. 

And the peace of God, which passeth all understand- 
ing, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ 
Jesus. — Philtppians iv. 6, 7. 

There is no doubt but prayer is needful 
daily ; ever profitable, and at all times commen- 
dable. If it be for ourselves alone, it is neces- 
sary ; and it is charitable when it is for others. 
At night it is our covering ; in the morning it 
is our armor. So at all times it defends us 
from the malice of Satan, our own subornations 
and betraying, the unequal weather that the 
world assaults us with, and preserves us in the 
favor and esteem of Heaven. We are depen- 
dents upon the court, while we are not petition- 
ers there ; so, till we be denied and dismissed, 
we have the protection thereof, which certainly 
is a privilege that a stranger cannot claim. And 
albeit prayer should be the key of the day, and 
the lock of the night, yet I hold it, of the two, 
more needful in the morning than when in the 
evening we commit ourselves to repose. It is 
true we have enough to induce it then. But 
70 



FOURTH WEEK. WEDNESDAY. 

with the sun we do disclose, and are discovered 
to our prying enemies. We go abroad to meet 
what at home does not look after us. The 
frays, the trains, the incitements, the opportu- 
nity, the occasions of offence, the lures and 
temptings from abroad, and the businesses 
and accidents of life, deny us any safety, but 
what we have from the favor of protective 
Providence. Felltham. 

Speak to Him, thou, for He hears, and Spirit with Spirit 

can meet — 
Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and 

feet. Tennyson. 

More things are wrought by prayer 
Than this world dreams of. Wherefore, let thy Yoice 
Rise like a fountain for me night and day. 
For what are men better than sheep or goats, 
That nourish a blind life within the brain, 
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer, 
Both for themselves and those who call them friend? 
For so the whole round earth is every way 
Bound by gold chains about the feet of God. 

Tennyson. 

Almighty and Everlasting God, who restorest us 
by the blessed Passion of Thy Christ, preserve in 
us the works of Thy mercy; that by the celebration 
of this Mystery our lives maybe continually devout, 
through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. 
7i 



FOURTH WEEK. 



The Lord hear thee in the day of trouble ; the name 
of the God of Jacob defend thee ; send thee help from the 
Sanctuary, and strengthen thee out of Zion. 

Psalm xx. i, 2. 

It is help of this sort which is chiefly pro- 
vided for us during Lent. Help we need and 
receive ; and it is principally that, so far as out- 
side sources are concerned, which comes to us 
through the Sanctuary. There are means we 
can use in the privacy of our own homes and 
closets, or wherever we may be, at any time. 
But in increased measure we are bidden to 
make use of God's House and the privileges 
it affords. And there is a difference between 
its influence and that of any other place on 
earth. There is something in the very quiet- 
ness of its courts, something in the association 
of it with its holy uses, something in the fact 
that there we meet w r ith others having the 
same difficulties and the same needs in com- 
mon prayer and praise, something in the fact 
that with it are associated all the strongest 
feelings that we know, the height of joy and 
the depth of sorrow, something in that God 
hath said, " There will I commune with thee 
72 



FOURTH WEEK. — THURSDAY. 

from above the mercy seat," that marks its in- 
fluence for its own, and makes the half-hour 
or more spent there, essentially unlike any that 
we can spend elsewhere. 

And one help from the Sanctuary, one 
strength out of Zion which leads all others, 
which had a pre-eminence given it by our 
Lord, which has been enshrined in liturgies 
ever since, we must not omit. Nowhere else 
but here in the symbols of His own appoint- 
ment, except under exceptional circumstances, 
can we feed on the Body and Blood of Him 
who, as at this time, journeys toward the Holy 
City, the spotless Lamb of God, who taketh 
away the sins of the world, — to the strength- 
ening and refreshing of our souls. With a 
peculiar fitness surely the memorials of His 
sacrifice and death are spread before us during 
this holy season, when more and more distinctly 
each day the cross comes into view in a won- 
derful manner, as we have felt them to be for 
the perpetual memory of that His precious 
death and sacrifice until His coming again. 

I love the Church, the holy Church, 

That o'er our life presides ; 
The birth, the bridal, and the grave, 

And many an hour besides ! 
73 



FOURTH WEEK. — THURSDAY. 

Be mine through life to live in her, 
And when the Lord shall call, 

To die in her — the spouse of Christ, 
The Mother of us all. 

Bishop Coxe. 

O Lord, we beseech Thee, let Thy Presence be 
with us in Thy House of Prayer, that it may be unto 
us a Sanctuary of strength and beauty. Let Thy 
Spirit descend upon us, that our hearts may be 
filled with pure and holy worship, until at last, of 
Thine infinite mercy, it is granted unto us to enter 
Thy temple above, to live in Thy Presence, and to 
give Thee praise forever. Amen. 



74 



FOURTH WEEK. 



jFrtoag* 

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in 
trouble. —Psalm xlvi. i. 

It does seem to me sometimes that if men 
would only take religion as a real and present 
thing, and if, instead of worshipping it in the 
past and expecting it with fear and dread and 
vain hope in the future, it could be a real thing 
with them here and now, something in which 
they are to live, not to which they are to flee in 
moments of doubt, not of which they should 
make a refuge, but in which they should do all 
their work and live ; then religion would be to 
the soul of man so that it could not be cast 
aside, so that they must enter into it and take 
it into themselves and make it their own. Re- 
ligion is not the simple fire-escape that you 
build, in anticipation of a possible danger, upon 
the outside of your dwelling, and leave it there 
until danger comes. You go to it some morn- 
ing when a fire breaks out in your house, and 
the poor old thing that you built up there and 
thought you could use some day is so dusty 
and broken, and the weather so beaten upon it, 
and the sun has so turned its hinges, that it 
75 



FOURTH WEEK. — FRIDAY. 

will not work. That is the condition of a man 
who has built himself what seems to be a creed 
of faith, a trust in God in anticipation of the 
day when danger is to overtake him, and has 
said to himself, " I am safe, for I will take re- 
fuge in it then." But religion is the house in 
which we live, it is the table at which we sit, it 
is the fireside to which we draw near, the room 
that arches its graceful and familiar presence 
over us, it is the bed on which we lie and think 
of the past and anticipate the future and gather 
our refreshment. There is no Christ except 
the present Christ for every man, with whom 
all the power of the historic Christ is always 
appearing, and who is great with all the sweet 
solemnity that comes from the knowledge of 
what in the future He is to be to the world and 
to the soul. 

Bishop Brooks. 

We may not climb the heavenly steeps 
To bring the Lord Christ down ; 

In vain we search the lowest deeps 
For Him no depth can drown. 

In joy of inward peace, or sense 

Of sorrow over sin, 
He is His own best evidence, 

His witness is within. 

7 6 



FOURTH WEEK. FRIDAY. 

No fable old, nor mythic lore, 
Nor dream of bards and seers, 

No dead fact stranded on the shore 
Of the oblivious years ; 

But warm, sweet, tender — even yet 

A present help is He : 
And faith has still its Olivet, 

And love its Galilee. 

J. G. Whittier. 

We beseech Thee, O Lord, let the power of Thy 
Holy Spirit be present with us, that it may both 
mercifully cleanse our hearts and protect us from 
all adversities, through our Lord Jesus Christ. 
Amen. 

11 



FOURTH WEEK. 



In your patience possess ye your souls. 

St. Luke xxi. 19. 

How many are there, who by reason of pov- 
erty, obscurity, infirmity of mind or body, can 
never hope to do much by action, and who often 
sigh at the contemplation of their want of power 
to effect anything ! But it is given to them, as 
to all, to suffer ; let them only suffer well, and 
they will give a testimony for God, which all 
who know them will deeply feel and profoundly 
respect. It is not necessary for all men to be 
great in action. The greatest and sublimest 
power is often simple patience ; and for just 
that reason we need sometimes to see its great- 
ness alone, that we may embrace the solitary, 
single idea of greatness, and bring it into our 
hearts unconfused with all other kind of power. 
Let this be remembered; and let it be your joy, 
in every trial and grief and pain and wrong you 
suffer, that to suffer well is to be a true advo- 
cate and pillar of the faith. Horace Eushnell. 

' ' O dreary life ! " we cry. — " O dreary life ! " 
And still the generations of the birds 
Sing through our sighing, and the flocks and herds 
Serenely live while we are keeping strife 
78 



FOURTH WEEK. — SATURDAY. 

With Heaven's true purpose in us, as a knife 
Against which we may struggle ! Ocean girds 
Unslackened the dry land ; savannah-swards 
Unweary sweep, — hills watch, unworn ; and rife, 
.Meek leaves drop yearly from the forest-trees 
To show above the unwasted stars that pass 
In their old glory. O Thou God of old, 
Grant me some smaller grace than comes to these ! — 
But so much patience as a blade of grass 
Grows by, contented, through the heat and cold. 

E. B. Browning. 

There will come a weary day 
When, overtaxed at length, 
Both hope and love beneath 

The weight give way. 
Then with a statue's smile, 
A statue's strength, 

Patience, nothing loth, 
And uncomplaining, does 

The work of both. 

Coleridge. 

Almighty and everlasting God, who of Thy tender 
love towards mankind hast sent Thy Son, our Sa- 
viour Jesus Christ, to take upon Him our flesh, and 
to suffer death upon the cross, that all mankind 
should follow the example of His great humility, 
mercifully grant that we may both follow the exam- 
ple of His patience, and also be made partakers of 
His resurrection, through the same Jesus Christ our 
Lord. Amen. 

79 



&fje jFourtlj <StmUa2 in 3Letit 

Ecfresfjtnent Stmtiag, fHtti =Htnt. 

Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the Mother 
of us all. 

So then, brethren, we are not children of the bond- 
woman, but of the free. — Galatians iv. 26. 31. 

And Jesus took the loaves ; and when He had given 
thanks, He distributed to the disciples, and the disciples 
to them that were set down ; and likewise of the fishes as 
much as they would. — St. John vi. 11. 

About the service at St. Mary's, Oxford, Pro- 
fessor Shairp tells us, the most remarkable thing 
was the beauty, the silver intonation of Mr. 
Newman's voice, as he read the Lessons. It 
seemed to bring new meaning out of the famil- 
iar words. Still lingers in the memory the tone 
with which he read, " Jerusalem which is above 
is free, which is the Mother of us all." What 
is the secret of the strange fascination which 
those words read in our hearing to-day have for 
us ? They tell us — as St. Paul loved to tell, 
having felt that emancipation himself — of 
Christian freedom, of that liberty wherewith 
Christ has made us free, of what in one place is 
called " the glorious liberty of the children of 
80 



THE FOURTH SUNDAY IN LENT. 

God." This is what, beyond and beneath the 
mere rhythmic flow of the words and the beauty 
of the language, reveals the true secret of why 
they so appeal to us. They come to us on this 
Mid-Lent, or Refreshment Sunday as it is some- 
times called. It is a penitential season through 
which we are passing. Its language is the lan- 
guage of the Litany, its burden is confession, 
its hymns are in the minor key. Sin, human 
sin, its prevalence, its power, its heinousness — 
this is what is continually kept before us. If 
we recoil from it, if the language put into our 
lips seems too strong, too intense, that very 
fact is a witness to our true nature, to sin as 
something abnormal, foreign to us, to sin as an 
exotic. 

But the way is long and the spirit faint. Is 
there no cheer by the wayside ? Is it only at 
the end of a long, dark pathway that the cross 
and the open tomb appear ? Nay, says our 
Mother the Church, as was said to Elijah of 
old, arise and eat, for the journey is too great 
for thee ; the soul, grieved and wearied with 
the burden of its sins, is not in bondage, it 
hath been set at liberty. We are not under 
the law, but under grace. Jerusalem, which is 
above, is free, and she is our Mother. Christ 
81 



THE FOURTH SUNDAY IN LENT. 

hath redeemed us from the curse of the law. 
Christ feedeth the multitude, even in the 
wilderness. Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty 
wherewith Christ hath made you free. 

Briers beset my every path, 

Which call for patient care ; 
There is a cross in everv lot, 

An earnest need for prayer ; 
But a lowly heart that leans on Thee 

Is happy everywhere. 

In service which Thy love appoints 

There are no bonds for me ; 
My secret heart is taught " the truth " 

That makes Thy children " free ; " 
A life of self-renouncing love 

Is a life of liberty. 

Anna L. Waring. 

To-day on weary nations 

The heavenly manna falls ; 
To holy convocation 

The silver trumpet calls ; 
Where Gospel light is glowing 

With pure and radiant beams 
And living water flowing, 

With soul-refreshing streams. 



New graces ever gaining 
From this, our day of rest, 

We reach the rest remaining 
To spirits of the blest ; 



THE FOURTH SUNDAY IN LENT. 

To Holy Ghost be praises, 

To Father and to Son, 
The Church her voice upraises 

To Thee, blest Three in One. 

Bishop Wordsworth. 

O God, who makest us glad with the weekly 
remembrance of the glorious resurrection of Thy 
Son, our Lord, vouchsafe us this day such a blessing 
through Thy worship, that the days which follow it 
may be spent in Thy favor, through the same Jesus 
Christ our Lord. Amen. 



83 



itftt) toeek. 



And Peter answered and said to Jesus, Master, it is 
good for us to be here : and let us make three tabernacles ; 
one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias. 

St. Mark ix. 5. 

Are not these words singularly expressive of 
a feeling that we have known ? Are they not 
verified in our experience? Something has 
taken us up into the mount — necessity, per- 
haps, from some trial that has befallen us, some 
conflict of mind or heart from out of which we 
have looked up for strength ; the quiet hours of 
the Sabbath with its service, or a Lenten sea- 
son like this, with its multiplied spiritual oppor- 
tunities ; besides our delight in it, besides our 
desire to abide, has there not been the feeling, 
I could easily and gladly be thus, if only there 
need not be a cessation of many of those helps 
that are sometimes, but not always, afforded 
me. My life might be continuously on so 
84 



FIFTH WEEK. MONDAY. 

much higher level, could these blessed influ- 
ences but be sustained. As it is, it is first up 
and then down again, first up on the mount and 
then clown on the plain, until I grow weary of 
the change. Oh, to tabernacle ! to tabernacle 
on the mountain top with Moses and Elias and 
the Lord ! 

No ! it could not be. The only answer to 
Peter's suggestion was a cloud that over- 
shadowed them, and a voice out of the cloud 
saying, "This is my beloved son, hear Him;" 
and when the voice ceased, Jesus was found 
alone. And in the morning they had to de- 
scend to the plain below, and plunge into life's 
duties and responsibilities. 

Was their experience on the mountain, then, 
useless because it could not continue? Nay, 
we need only one answer to that question. 
We are confronted with one fact which is more 
than a reply. Jesus knew that they could not 
remain there, and yet He took them. These 
same three were to watch with their Master in 
the Garden. They were pitifully weak in flesh 
as it was. Who shall say whether the spirit 
would not have been weak also, but for this man- 
ifestation of His glory, in company with the men- 
tion of the decease which He should accomplish 
at Jerusalem. 85 



FIFTH WEEK. MONDAY. 

Lent is, in some sort, our Mount of the 
Transfiguration. It is a time when we are to 
enjoy new visions of the Saviour ; when we are 
to hear much mention of the decease He is to 
accomplish at Jerusalem ; when we shall feel it 
is good for us to be here at these multiplied 
services, at these special means for deepening 
our religious life ; it is a time in which we 
shall want to build a tabernacle and remain. 
But it will not last forever. The forty days 
come and go. We, too, shall have to descend 
the mountain, and take up our ordinary life 
upon the plain. But shall it not leave us upon 
a little higher spiritual level than it found us ? 
Are we so using it as to enable us the better to 
live in the midst of those things with which we 
must mingle ? Are we forming habits of life, 
of devotion, of active service of the Master, 
that shall cling to us through all the year ? 

Not always on the mount may we 
Rapt in the heavenly vision be ; 
The shores of thought and feeling know 
The spirit's tidal ebb and flow. 

Lord, it is good abiding here, 
We cry, the Heavenly Presence near ; 
The vision vanishes, — our eyes 
Are lifted into vacant skies ! 
86 



FIFTH WEEK. MONDAY. 

Yet hath one such exalted hour 
Upon the soul redeeming power ; 
And in its strength through after days 
We travel our appointed ways, 

Till all the lowly vale grows bright, 
Transfigured in remembered light, 
And in untiring souls we bear 
The freshness of the upper air. 

The mount for vision, but below 
The paths of daily duty go. 
And nobler life therein shall own 
The pattern on the mountain shown. 

Frederick L. IIosmer. 

O God, who on the mount didst reveal to chosen 
witnesses Thine only begotten Son wondei fully trans- 
figured, in raiment white and glistering, mercifully 
grant that we, being delivered from the disquietude 
of this world, may be permitted to behold the King 
in His beauty, who with Thee, O Father, and Thee, 
O Holy Ghost, liveth and reigneth, one God, world 
without end. Amen. 

87 



FIFTH WEEK. 



Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is 
stayed on Thee : because he trusteth in Thee. 

Isaiah xxvi. 3. 

These things I have spoken unto you, that in Me ye 
might have peace. — St. John xvi. 33. 

When you look at the believer's life, you 
may see no trace of his inward peace of soul. 
But you know that the ocean under the hurri- 
cane is lashed into those huge waves and that 
wild foam, only upon the surface. Not ver 
down the waters are as still as an autumn noon; 
there is not a ripple or breath or motion. And 
so, my friends, if we had the faith we ought, 
though there might be ripples upon the surface 
of our lot, we should have the inward peace of 
perfect faith in God. 

Amid the dreary noises of this world, amid 
its cares and tears, amid its hot contentions, 
ambitions, and disappointments, w r e should have 
an inner calm like the ocean depths, to which 
the influence of the w T ild winds and waves above 
can never come. 

The Country Parson. 



FIFTH WEEK. — TUESDAY. 

When winds are raging o'er the upper ocean, 
And billows wild contend with angry roar, 

Tis said, far down beneath the wild commotion. 
That peaceful stillness reigneth evermore. 

Far, far beneath, the noise of tempest dieth, 
And silver waves chime ever peacefully. 

And no rude storm, how fierce soe'er he flieth, 
Disturbs the Sabbath of that deeper sea. 

So to the heart that knows Thy love, O Purest, 

There is a temple, sacred evermore; 
And all the babble of life's angry voices 

Dies in hushed silence at its peaceful door. 

Far, far away, the roar of passion dieth, 

And loving thoughts rise calm and peacefully, 

And no rude storm, how fierce soe'er he flieth, 
Disturbs the soul that dwells, Lord, in Thee. 

Oh, rest of rest ! Oh, peace serene, eternal! 

Thou ever livest, and Thou changest never; 
And in the secret of Thy presence dwelleth 

Fulness of joy, forever and forever. 

II. B. Stowb. 

O Lord God, give peace unto us, for Thou hast 
given us all things, the peace of rest, the peace of 
the Sabbath, which hath no evening ; yea, give us 
rest in Thee, the Sabbath of eternal life. For Thou 
Shalt rest in us, as Thou workest in us, and Thy rest 
shall be through us. as Thy works are through us. 
Amen. 

89 



FIFTH WEEK. 



And He said unto them, Take heed, and beware of 
covetousness : for a man's life consisteth not in the 
abundance of the things which he possesseth. 

St. Luke xii. 15. 

Through all His life, Christ was poor ; that 
fact we know full well. The picture on the 
pages of the Gospel, with which our eyes are so 
familiar, never lets us forget it. There it al- 
ways is — the humble company, shut out of the 
great caravansary as insignificant people, and 
finding their place among the cattle ; the per- 
fect destitution of all the things which make 
life splendid, or even comfortable ; the carpen- 
ter's shop ; the long foot journeys ; the " not 
having where to lay His head." We know it 
all, and yet sometimes it comes back to us with 
something almost like discovery and surprise. 
Was it, then, true ? Did that which all men 
are accepting as the pattern of life come into 
the world, and go out of the world, without a 
single sign of any care about those things which 
the great mass of men are struggling after as if 
there could be no joy in life without them ? 
Ah ! how vulgar and poor it makes the hunt for 
money seem ! How it ought to break some of 
90 



FIFTH WEEK. WEDNESDAY. 

these heavy chains ! It is not necessary that 

you should be rich. There is no need of it 

whatever. Behold ! He who struck the highest, 

purest note of human life ; He who showed 

God to man ; He who brought man to God; He 

who redeemed the world— He was not rich, but 

poor. Oh, blessed fact ! The life of Christ may 

be misread into a false glorification of poverty, 

but it never can be made to preach cupidity. 

He who reads the story of Christ's life, knows 

that to be rich is not, and never can be, the 

worthy object of a human life. He who reads 

that story, despises his own passion for money. 

He feels dropping out of his heart the base and 

brutal contempt for the poor man. And the 

poor man himself fills his soul with self-respect 

and strength beside the cradle of the poor 

Jesus. 

Bishop Brooks. 

From street and square, from hill and glen, 
Of this vast world beyond my door t 

I hear the tread of marching men, 
The patient armies of the poor. 

Not ermine-clad or clothed in state, 
Their title-deeds not yet made plain ; 

But, waking early, toiling late, 
The heirs of all the earth remain. 
9" 



?: r 7H '.VZZV — -.VZIVI.DAV. 

The peasant brain shall yet be wise, 
The untamed pulse grow calm and still ; 

The blind shall see, the lowly 

And work in peace Time's wondrous will. 

Some day, without a trumpefs call, 

This news will o'er the world be blown : 

" The heritage comes back to all ! 
The myriad monarchs take their o t 

T. \V. Higgi: 

O God, Almighty and merciful, who healest those 
that are broken in heart and turnest the sadness 
of the sorrowful to joy ; let Thy fatherly goodness 
be upon all that Thou hast made. Especia 
beseech Thee to remember in pity such as are this 
day destitute, homeless, or forgotten of their fellow- 
men. Bless the congregation of Thy poor. Uplift 
those who are cast down, mightily befriend innocent 
sufferers, and sanctify to them the endurance of their 
wrongs. Cheer with hope all discouraged and un- 
happy people, and by Thy heavenly grace preserve 
from falling those whose penury tempteth them to 
sin. Though they be troubled on every side, suffer 
them not to be distressed, though they be per- 
plexed, save them from despair. Grant this 
Lord, for the love of Him who for our sakes be- 
came poor, Thy Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ. 

92 



FIFTH WEEK. 



Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, 
and I will give you rest. — St. Matthew xi. 28. 

No one, perhaps, ever read these words of 
Christ without being struck with their singu- 
lar adaptation to the necessities of our nature. 
We have read them again and again, and we 
have found them ever fresh, beautiful, and 
new. No man could ever read them without 
being conscious that they realized the very 
deepest and inmost want of his being. We 
feel it is a convincing proof of His divine 
mission, that He has thus struck the keynote 
of our nature in offering us rest. Ancient 
systems were busy in the pursuit after hap- 
piness. Our modern systems of philosophy, 
science, ay, even of theology, occupy them- 
selves with the same thought, telling us alike 
that " happiness is our being's end and aim." 

But it is not so that the Redeemer teaches. 
His doctrine is in words such as these : " In 
the world ye shall have " — not happiness, but 
— "tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have 
overcome the world." "In Me ye shall have 
93 



FIFTH WEEK. — THURSDAY. 

peace ; " not happiness, — the outward well- 
being so called in the world, — but the inward 
rest which cometh from above ; and He alone 
who made this promise had a right to say, 
" Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me ; for 
I am meek and lowly in heart ; and ye shall 
find rest unto your souls." He had that rest 
in Himself, and therefore could impart it. We 
repeat these words as a matter of course ; but 
I ask, u Has that repose been found ? has this 
peace come to us ? " It is not by merely repeat- 
ing them over and over again that we can enter 
into the deep rest of Christ. He says, u Not 
as the world giveth, give I unto you." The 
world proposes a rest by the removal of a 
burden. The Redeemer gives rest by giving 
us the spirit and power to bear the burden. 
"Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me, 
and ye shall find rest unto your souls/' To the 
man who takes this yoke up in Christ's spirit, 
labor becomes blessedness — rest of soul and 
res: of body. In the performance of duty, in 
meekness, in trust in God, is our rest — our 

only rest. 

F. W. Robertson. 

When God at first made man. 
Having a glasse of blessings standing by; 
94 



FIFTH WEEK. THURSDAY. 

Let us (said he) poure on him all we can ; 
Let the worlcTs riches, which dispersed lie, 
Contract into a span. 

So strength first made a way ; 
Then beautie flow'd, then wisdome, honour, pleasure ; 
When almost all was out, God made a stay, 
Perceiving that alone, of all his treasure, 

Rest in the bottome lay. 

For if I should (said he) 
Bestow this Jewell also on my creature, 
He would adore my gifts in stead of me ; 
And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature : 

So both should losers be. 

Yet let him keep the rest, 
But keep them with repining restlessnesse ; 
Let him be rich and wearie, that at least, 
If goodness leade him not, yet wearinesse 

May tosse him to my breast. 

George Herbert. 

O God, from whom all holy desires, all good 
counsels, and all just works do proceed, give unto 
Thy servants that peace which the world cannot 
give, that our hearts may be set to obey Thy 
commandments, and also that by Thee we, being 
defended from the fear of our enemies, may pass 
our time in rest and quietness, through the merits of 
Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen. 



95 



FIFTH WEEK. 

jFritrag* 

Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me ; for I am 
meek and lowly of heart : and ye shall find rest unto your 
souls. — St. Matthew xi. 29. 

It is only when we see what it was in Him 
that we can know what the word Rest means. 
It lies not in emotions, nor in the absence of 
emotions. It is not a hallowed feeling that 
comes over us in church. It is not something 
that the preacher has in his voice. It is not in 
nature, or in poetry, or in music — though in all 
these there is soothing. It is the mind at lei- 
sure from itself. It is the perfect poise of the 
soul, the absolute adjustment of the inward 
man to the stress of all outward things, the 
preparedness against every emergency, the sta- 
bility of assured convictions, the eternal calm of 
an invulnerable faith, the repose of a heart set 
deep in God. It is the mood of the man who 
says with Browning, " God's in His Heaven ; 
all's well with the world." 

Two painters each painted a picture to illus- 
trate his conception of rest. The first chose 
for his scene a still, lone lake among the far-off 
mountains. The second threw on his canvas a 
thundering waterfall, with a fragile birch-tree 
bending over the foam ; at the fork of a branch, 
96 



FIFTH WEEK. FRIDAY. 

almost wet with the cataract's spray, a robin sat 
on its nest. The first was only Stagnation ; the 
last was Rest. For in rest there are always two 
elements, — tranquillity and energy, silence and 
turbulence, creation and destruction, fearless- 
ness and fearfulness. This it was in Christ. 

H. Drummond. 

Thou knowest, Lord, the weariness and sorrow 
Of the sad heart that comes to Thee for rest ; 

Cares of to-day, and burdens for to-morrow, 

Blessings implored, and sins to be confessed, — 

I come before Thee at Thy gracious word, 

And lay them at Thy feet ; Thou knowest, Lord. 

Thou knowest, not alone as God, all knowing: 
As man, our mortal weakness Thou hast proved ; 

On earth, with purest sympathies o'erflowing, 

O Saviour, Thou hast wept, and Thou hast loved ; 

And love and sorrow still to Thee may come, 

And find a hiding-place, a rest, a home. 

Therefore I come, Thy gentle call obeying, 
And lay my sins and sorrows at Thy feet, 

On everlasting strength my weakness staying, 
Clothed in Thy robe of righteousness complete ; 

Then rising and refreshed, I leave Thy throne, 

And follow on to know as I am known. 

Anon. 



Loving Saviour, strength of the weary, rest of th 
restless, by the weariness and unrest of Thy sacred 
cross, come to me who am weary, that 1 may rest in 
Thee. Amen. 

97 



a 



FIFTH WEEK. 



JSaturUas* 

For we which have believed do enter into rest. 

Hebrews iv. 3. 
There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. 

Hebrews iv. 9. 

Well may we faint sometimes in the strug- 
gle of life ! Work unrequited, love unreturned, 
words misunderstood, deeds misrepresented — 
is not this too often our earthly lot ? There is 
no man, woman, or child who ever lived, who 
has not at some time or other longed for rest. 
The birds have time to sing, the flowers have 
time to bloom, the sun shines and knows no 
sorrow, why is our lot labor and sadness ? It 
is in hours like these, when the heart grows 
weary and utterly fails, that we hear the voice 
of Christ saying, " Come unto Me, all ye that 
are weary, and I will give you rest." There 
are some who, when they have experienced the 
rest of sins forgiven, imagine that they can look 
for no other rest on earth, but must endure 
fighting and sorrow and fear until they reach 
the land "where the wicked cease from trou- 
bling, and the weary are at rest/' This is not 
the teaching of the Bible. " We which have 
believed do enter into rest." Why do we not 
98 



FIFTH WEEK. — SATURDAY. 

make use of our privileges as we might ? Christ 
has given us an open invitation : " Come unto 
Me, and I will give you rest." He limits it with 
no restrictions and no conditions. Come unto 
Me, believing that I have almighty power, and 
I will give you rest. How terribly we wound 
Christ when we doubt His willingness to re- 
lieve us ! We can, perhaps, understand that 
He is ready to give us rest from the burden of 
sin, for it was to save us from sin that He 
came down from heaven ; but can it be possible 
that we may cast upon Him the burden of daily 
life ? May we come to Him in our little wor- 
ries and difficulties, when we are wearied and 
overwhelmed with work, ruffled and irritated 
with disappointments, may we come to Christ 
then and ask for rest ? To doubt His word is 
to deny Him. How different our lives would 
be, if in all the troubles and discomforts that, 
small as they may appear to others, yet weigh 
down upon our souls, we would remember the 
Divine promise, which has power to shed 
brightness over our lives. 

" If our love were but more simple, 
We should take Him at His word, 
And our lives would be all sunshine 
In the sweetness of our Lord." 
99 



FIFTH WEEK. — SATURDAY. 

Striving in our own strength, even though it 

be with earnest endeavor, we cannot fail to 

grow weary ; but resting on the errace and 

-r of God. we " shall mount up with wings 

as eagles,, we shall wal not faint.' 1 

II. B. Whiting. 

Wait on the Lord for what He hath to give, 

O restless heart. 
He knows the sorrows that beset thy v 
He knows thy fretful weariness to- 

O fainting he; 
When thou hast stilled thyself to re- 

robbing heart ; 
When thou hast learned to love Him first and chief. 
To love Him even better for thy grief, 

eeping heart! 
Then will He grant thee all thine own desire, 

O longing hce 
Sunlight of joy may even here be gi 
If so He will — if not, sunrise in Heaven ! 

O waiting heart ! 

Anon. 

Lord, support me all the day long of this trou- 
blous life, until the shadows lengthen and the even- 
ing comes. orid is hushed and the 
fever of life is over, and my work is done. Then 
in Thy mercy grant me a safe lodging and a holy 
res: and paace at the lost Amen. Lord Jesus. 
Amen. 

ioo 



W§z jftftf) Suntrag in ILent 

Passion Suntiag. 

For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of 
an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctiiieth to the purify- 
ing of the flesh ; how much more shall the blood of Christ, 
who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without 
spot to God. purge your conscience from dead works to 
serve the living God? — Hebrews ix. 13, 14. 

A well-known painting by a distinguished 
English artist represents our Saviour while 
still a youth, standing in the door of Joseph's 
carpenter shop, and weary with the day's toil, 
raising his arms, and unconsciously throwing 
upon the wall behind him, red with the rays of 
the setting sun, the shadow of a cross. It was 
a foretoken of what was to be. And the mys- 
terious mention of an hour that was to come, 
of a going away, and direct reference to the 
decease he was to accomplish at Jerusalem, tell 
us somewhat of how often the shadow of that 
cross fell across his thoughts. 

It is the picture of what the Church has done 
on this Passion Sunday, in turning our thoughts 
away from ourselves as sinners, which thus far 
101 



THE FIFTH SUNDAY IN LENT. 

in Lent has been their burden, and directing 
them toward the Lamb of God which taketh 
away the sins of the world. It is the anticipa- 
tion of the culminating act of the one great 
transcendent fact in human history. As though 
Good Friday, and even the whole week in the 
midst of which it comes, were all too short to 
duly set before us the sacrifice of Christ and 
redemption through his blood, she reminds. us 
of them now, and bids us think of them and 
dwell upon them, and so far as it is given us 
to do so, to enter into mysteries into which the 
very angels desire to look. So the opening 
words of the lesson that was read this morning 
are, " In that day there shall be a fountain 
opened to the house of David and to the inhabi- 
tants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness. ,, 
So the appointed epistle is that passage from 
the Epistle to the Hebrews, a part of which 
you have just read, and which brings Christ 
before us as our great High Priest, entering by 
His own blood once into the heavens, having 
obtained eternal redemption for us. Reverently 
let us dispose our minds rightly to dwell on 
these sacred mysteries. 

The Royal Banners forward go, 
The Cross shines forth in mystic glow ; 
102 



THE FIFTH SUNDAY IX LENT. 

Where He, in flesh, our flesh Who made, 
Our sentence bore, our ransom paid. 

There whilst He hung, His sacred side 
By soldier's spear was opened wide, 
To cleanse us in the precious flood 
Of water mingled with His blood. 

V. FORTUNATUS. 

Almighty and everlasting God, grant us so to cele- 
brate the mysteries of our Lord's Passion, that we, 
obtaining pardon through His precious blood, may 
come with joy to the commemoration of that sacri- 
fice by which Thou hast been pleased to redeem us, 
through the same Thy Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ. 
Amen. 

103 



0fetl) toeek. 

iHontiag. 



Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the 
holiest by the blood of Jesus, 

By a new and living way, which He hath consecrated 
for us, through the veil, that is to say, His flesh ; 

And having an High Priest over the house of God ; 

Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of 
faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, 
and our bodies washed with pure water. 

Hebrews x. 19-22. 

It has sometimes, perhaps, seemed to us a 
strange thing, that so much is said in the New 
Testament about the blood of Christ, that it 
has entered as it has into our Liturgy, that we 
sing of it so much in our hymns. It has been 
an aspect of His mediatorial work from which 
possibly we have sometimes recoiled. At times 
it has been made, in the hands of the enemies 
of such a doctrine, to imply so savage and 
tragic a theology as to be difficult of acceptance. 
But what we are concerned with is the essen- 
104 



SIXTH WEEK. — MONDAY. 

tial truth taught by it, the real thing which the 
blood of Christ, the precious blood as of a Lamb 
without spot, signifies. It is the very height 
of self-devotion that is expressed by it, the gift 
of the utmost that one can do for another. 
Even in the ordinances of the Tabernacle the 
blood stood for the very life principle or soul 
of the animal. It is the acme, the pinnacle, of 
self-sacrifice. It is supremely the offering of 
one's self. " Greater love hath no man than this, 
that a man lay down his life for his friends." 

" In all the languages of the world," writes 
Canon Liddon, " blood is the proof, the war- 
rant, of affection and of sacrifice. To shed 
blood voluntarily for another is to give the best 
that man can give. It is to give a sensible 
proof of it ; it is to give almost a bodily form to 
love. This, our profound human instinct, is 
common to all ages, to all civilizations, to all 
religions. The blood of the soldier who dies 
for duty, the blood of the martyr who dies for 
truth, the blood of the man who dies that an- 
other may live — blood like this, is an embodi- 
ment of the highest moral powers in human 
life. And these powers, most assuredly, were 
all of them represented in the blood that flowed 
from the wounds of Christ on Calvary. It be- 
105 



SIXTH WEEK. MONDAY 

longs not now to the physical, but to the super- 
sensuous world. It washes souls, not bodies. 
It is sprinkled, not on altars, but on consciences. 
It is the secret power of all that purifies, of all 
that invigorates souls in Christendom. " 

Glory be to Jesus, 

Who in bitter pains 
Poured for me the life-blood 

From His sacred veins ! 
Grace and life eternal 

In that blood I find. 
Blest be His compassion 

Infinitely kind ! 

Blest through endless ages 

Be the precious stream, 
Which from endless torments 

Did the world redeem ! 
Abel's blood for vengeance 

Pleaded to the skies ; 
But the blood of Jesus 

For our pardon cries. 

Oft as earth exulting 

Wafts its praise on high, 
Angel-hosts, rejoicing, 

Make their glad reply. 
Lift ye then your voices ; 

Swell the mighty flood ; 
Louder still and louder, 

Praise the precious Blood. 

Tr, by E. Caswall. 
i 06 



SIXTH WEEK. — MONDAY 

O most loving Saviour, who hast loved us and 
washed us from our sins in Thine own blood, I love 
Thee for all that Thou hast done for me, and I de- 
sire to love Thee more and more, with all the pow- 
ers of my heart and soul. Help my weakness, and 
pour Thy grace into my heart, that I may hence- 
forth love Thee above all things, and seek to do 
Thy will. Amen. 

107 



SIXTH WEEK. 



Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our sins 
in His own blood, 

And hath made us kings and priests unto God and His 
Father ; to Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. 
Amen. — Revelation i. 5, 6. 

But are we to stand and simply gaze upon 
what He has done for us ? Can we do nothing 
which is of the same nature ? Is there not 
something which corresponds to it within our 
own lives ? Oh, yes ! Even the animal world 
enjoys that privilege ; it could not be otherwise 
with us. There are most touching shadows of 
it in the lower creation. The sweet, pathetic 
tragedy of a piece of English gorse, the natural- 
ist has told us. The gorse was set fire to. The 
fire swept on fast until it came to a linnet's 
nest. And after it, the naturalist found cover- 
ing the little brood, which were saved from the 
storm of fire that swept over them, a small, 
black, blasted skeleton, which might have been 
a colored and winged song under the blue sky, 
had she not been faithful unto death. Small, 
but beautiful picture of the love of Him who 
gave Himself for us. " This did I for thee, 
what doest thou for Me ? " are the words writ- 
108 



SIXTH WEEK. TUESDAY. 

ten under Correggio's famous painting of "Ecce 
Homo " in the gallery at Munich. And we can 
do. We are made kings and priests unto God. 
We are "an holy priesthood," says the Apostle, 
" to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God 
by Jesus Christ." How? Shall I answer that 
question for you ? The ways are very various. 

One beautiful one finds its expression in our 
Communion Office, where we say, " And here 
we offer and present unto Thee, O Lord, our- 
selves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, 
holy, and living sacrifice unto Thee." Another, 
recognized in the same place, is the sacrifice of 
praise and thanksgiving, the great duty of pub- 
lic worship in the House of God. Another, the 
fruit of a sense of stewardship of whatever we 
may have, and we humbly beseech God to ac- 
cept our alms and oblations which we offer unto 
His Divine Majesty. Another is in the surren- 
der of the will when we are clear in our convic- 
tion that God's voice says one thing, and our 
inclinations draw us toward another. Another 
is in the " casting down of our imaginations 
and every high thing that exalteth itself against 
God, and bringing into captivity every thought 
to the obedience of Christ." Another is in 
giving ourselves to the Master for useful Chris- 
109 



SIXTH WEEK. — TUESDAY. 

tian service, offering ourselves, in whatever good 
it is in our power to do in the world. All these 
are forms of spiritual sacrifice acceptable to 
God through Jesus Christ ; are senses in which 
His sacrifice may be repeated in us. Oh, are 
we offering these, you and I, in our daily lives ? 
But half the purpose of Jesus' offering of Him- 
self is realized if there is no answering offering 
on our part in thankful acknowledgment of His. 

The holy Lenten time is now far spent ; 

And from the muffled altars everywhere 

Full many a warning voice has bid prepare 
The Lord's highway, and cried aloud, Repent ! 
And be your heart and not your garments rent ; 

And turn unto the Lord, your God, with prayer. 
Not, as aforetime, are the contrite sent 

To sackcloth, ashes, and the shirt of hair, 

Or knotted thong ; but consciences laid bare, 
And lowly minds, and knees in secret bent, 
And fasts in spirit, mark the penitent. 

Let not the broken-hearted then despair ; 
The sighs of those who worthily lament 

Their sins, reach Heaven, and are accepted there. 

W. Croswell. 

Almighty and everlasting God, who restorest us 
by the blessed Passion of Thy Christ, preserve in 
us the works of Thy mercy, that by the celebration 
of this Mystery our lives may be continually devout, 
through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen, 
no 



SIXTH WEEK. 

8KrtJttfgfcag. 

And whosoever shall give to drink unto one of these 
little ones a cup of cold water only in the name of a dis- 
ciple, verily I say unto you, he shall in no wise lose his 
reward. —St. Matthew x. 42. 

Xor need it be only in some great act that 
we can make offering of ourselves. Such 
opportunities may or may not come. But the 
smaller ones come to all. " This spirit of 
sacrifice," says a devotional writer, "not held 
off for a distant, sentimental admiration, but 
brought in and embodied in our lives, is a very 
homely, practical, every-day thing. It has place 
in any room in the house from morning till 
night. It is in the little and continual givings 
up of what is pleasant in such quiet, skilful 
ways of holy ingenuity, loving contrivance, and 
blessed thoughtfulness, that they for whom the 
sacrifice is so secretly borne shall never know 

it was suffered for them — in which veil of 
reserve the beauty of the act so often lies, the 
beneficiary seeing nothing but the bright, spon- 
taneous cheerfulness of the favor, and not even 
knowing, perhaps, what it cost or whence it 
came; and then the act is no longer small, but 
rises into the greatness of the honor of the cup 
in 



SIXTH WEEK. WEDNESDAY. 

of cold water given in the name of a disciple 
under the benediction of Christ. There is no 
comfort, no delight, no social indulgence or 
play, no domestic advantage or luxury, no first 
place of rest or enjoyment or eminence, but it 
may be turned and transfigured by the youngest 
person into one of these nobler offerings to the 
Lord Jesus, and so beautified with the sign of 
the cross." Everywhere and always, when a 
man is giving of himself to God, is devoting 
himself to the good of his fellow-man in Christ's 
name, he is offering up a sacrifice, acceptable 
to God by Jesus Christ. 

A poor, way-faring man of grief 

Hath often crossed me on my way, 
Who sued so humbly for relief 

That I could never answer, Nay. 
I had not power to ask his name, 

Whither he went, or whence he came ; 
Yet there was something in his eye 

That won my love, I knew not why 

I spied him where a fountain burst 

Clear from the rock ; his strength was gone, 
The heedless water mocked his thirst, 

He heard it, saw it hurrying on ; 
I ran to raise the sufferer up ; 

Thrice from the stream he drained my cup, 
Dipt and returned it running o'er ; 

I drank and never thirsted more. 
112 



SIXTH WEEK. WEDNESDAY. 

Stript, wounded, beaten nigh to death, 

I found him by the highway side ; 
I roused his pulse, brought back his breath, 

Revived his spirit, and supplied 
Wine, oil, refreshment; he was healed; 

I had myself a wound concealed, 
But from that hour forgot the smart, 

And peace bound up my broken heart. 

In prison I saw him next, condemned 

To meet a traitor's death at morn : 
The tide of lying tongues I stemmed. 

And honored him midst shame and scorn. 
My friendship's utmost zeal to try, 

He asked if I for him would die : 
The flesh was weak, the blood ran chill, 

But the free spirit cried, " I will." 

Then in a moment to my view 

The stranger darted from disguise ; 
The tokens in His hand I knew, 

My Saviour stood before mine eyes ! 
He spoke ; and my poor name He named. — 

" Of Me thou hast not been ashamed : 
These deeds shall thy memorial be ; 

Fear not! thou didst them unto Me." 

Montgomery. 

Make us, () Lord, we beseech Thee, in obedience 

to Thy will, ever kind to the poor and needy, so 
that, abounding in works of mercy, we may be 
inheritors of Thine eternal kingdom, through Thy 
mercy, O our God, and for the sake of Him who 
gave Himself for us. Thy Son, Jesus Christ our 
Lord. Amen. 113 



SIXTH WEEK. 

Peter saith unto Him, Thou shalt never wash my feet. 
Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part 
with Me. 

Simon Peter saith unto him, Lord, not my feet only, 
but also my hands and my head. — St. John xiii. 8, 9. 

Was there ever a more dreadful thing than 
for a soul to say that, because, it may be, of 
the unwisdom, or the imprudence, the over- 
zeal and the mistaken zeal of other men, we 
have not got the full blessing of that rich, 
open, free life with Christ which the youth 
may have, and therefore we will abandon the 
privileges of our higher life which are given to 
us in our manlier years ? It all comes of this 
awful way of talking as if religion were the 
duty, and not the inestimable privilege, of 
human kind. The Christ stands before us and 
says, " Come to me." You say, " Must I ? " 
And He answers, " You may." He will not 
even say, " You must." "You may." And 
duty loses itself in privilege, and the soul enters 
into independence and escapes from its sins, 
fulfils its life, lays hold of its salvation, be- 
comes eternal, begins to live an eternal life in 
the accepted and loving service of Christ. 

Bishop Brooks. 
114 



SIXTH WEEK. THURSDAY. 

O sacred Head, now wounded, 

With grief and shame bowed down, 
Now scornfully surrounded 

With thorns, Thine only crown. 
O sacred Head, what glory, 

What bliss till now was Thine ! 
Yet, though despised and gory, 

I joy to call Thee mine. 

Th2 joy can ne'er be spoken, 

Above all joys beside, 
When in Thy body broken, 

I thus with safety hide. 
Lord of my life, desiring 

Thy glory now to see, 
Beside Thy cross expiring, 

I'd breathe my soul to Thee. 

What language shall I borrow 

To thank Thee, dearest Friend, 
For this Thy dying sorrow, 

Thy pity without end? 
Oh, make me Thine forever; 

And should I fainting be, 
Lord, let me never, never 

Outlive my love for Thee. 

S. Bernard. 

Have mercy, () compassionate Father, on all who 
are hardened through the deceitfulness of sin ; 
vouchsafe them grace to come to themselves, the 
will and power to return to Thee, and the loving 
welcome of thy forgiveness, through Jesus Christ 
our Lord. Amen. 

"5 



SIXTH Wl 



Jtfirag* 

Then He said unto them. O fools, and slow of heart to 
believe all that the prophets have spoken : 

Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to 
enter into His glory? — St. Luke xx: : : . : 

People say it was so marvellous that Jesus 
should be willing to come down from His 
throne in heaven, and undertake all the strange 
sorrow and distress that belonged to Him when 
He came to save the world from its sins. 
Wonderful ? There was no wonder in it ; no 
wonder if we enter up into the region where 
Jesus lives, and think of life as He must have 
thought of life. No, indeed, there is no won- 
der that God loved the world. There is no 
wonder that Christ, the Son of God, at any 
sacrifice, undertook to save the world. The 
wonder would have been if God, sitting in His 
heaven, the wonder would have been, if Jesus, 
ready to come here to the earth, and seeing 
how it was possible t: save man from sin by 
suffering, had not suffered. Do you wonder at 
the mother, when she gives her life without a 
hesitation or a cry, when she gives her life 
with joy, with thankfulness, for her child, 
116 



SIXTH WEEK. FRIDAY. 

counting it her privilege ? Do you wonder at 
the patriot, the hero, when he rushes into the 
battle to do the good deed which it is possible 
for him to do? No; read your own nature 
deeper, and you will understand your Christ. 
It is no wonder that He should have died upon 
the cross ; the wonder would have been if, with 
the inestimable privilege of saving man, He 
had shrunk from that cross and turned away. 
It sets before us that it is not the glories of 
suffering, it is not the necessity of suffering, it 
is simply the beauty of obedience and the ful- 
filment of a man's life in doing his duty and 
rendering the service which it is possible for 

him to render to his fellow-man. 

Bishop Brooks. 

Fulfilled is now what David told, 

In true prophetic song of old. 

How God the heathen's King should be : 

For God is reigning from the tree. 

O tree of glory, tree most fair, 
Ordained those holy limbs to bear, 
How bright in purple robe it stood. 
The purple of a Saviour's blood ! 

Upon its arms, like balance true, 

He weighed the price for sinners due. 
The price which none but lie could pay. 
And spoiled the spoiler of his prey. 
117 



SIXTH WEEK. FRIDAY. 

To Thee, Eternal Three in One, 
Let homage meet by all be done : 
As by the cross Thou dost restore, 
So rule and guide us evermore. 

V. FORTUNATUS. 

O Saviour of the world, who by Thy Cross and 
Precious Blood hast redeemed us, save us and help 
us, we humbly beseech Thee, O Lord. 



nS 



SIXTH WEEK. 

Saturfcajh 

But this I say, brethren, the time is short. 

i Corinthians vii. 29. 
I must work the works of Him that sent me, while it 
is day : the night comet h, when no man can work. 

St. John ix. 4. 
And His disciples remembered that it was written, The 
zeal of Thine house hath eaten me up. 

St. John ii. 17. 

Christ's life was a very short life. It had 
hardly more than begun when it was cut off by 
a murder. We complain that life is short. We 
say, " If we had only time, we would do some- 
thing." The old man, feeling the ground 
crumbling beneath his feet, struggles almost 
frantically against the inevitable doom. " Give 
me a few more years of solid foothold ! I am 
not ready to go yet ; I have done nothing. I 
have had no time. I was just going to begin." 
Behold, here, what a very bit of a life it was 
that saved the world ! See how the soul of 
Jesus just touched the earth, and left it burn- 
ing forever with new fire. It is not time you 
want, but fire. The cloud lies on the mountain- 
top all day, and leaves it at last just as it found 
it in the morning, only wet and cold. The 
lightning touches the mountain for an instant, 
119 



SIXTH WEEK. SATURDAY. 

and the very rocks are melted, and the whole 
shape of the great mass is changed. 

Oh, most of our lives are long enough ! 
Enough, enough of this which makes up what 
we call our living ! Enough of this dawdling 
and lounging, enough of this chasing of pleas- 
ure which we never catch, this thinking idle 
thoughts which come to nothing, this dreading 
of dangers which we know not how to avoid ! 
Who would not cry out to God : Oh, make my 
life how short I care not, so that it can have 
the fire in it for an hour ! If only it can have 
intensity ! Let it but touch the tumult of this 
world only for an instant ! Then let it go, and 
leave its power behind. Whether that day be 
far or near, He knows ; and that is quite enough 
for us. We will not ask about that, but only 
pray that we may see Him now, and give our- 
selves to Him, and let Him make us His, and 
make Himself ours by His grace. 

Bishop Brooks. 

Soon will the Holy Week be here ; 
It is as if my Lord were near, 
And, half in hope and half in fear, 

I went to meet Him, so to be 
A witness of the agony 
And bitter Passion borne for me. 
120 



SIXTH WEEK. SATURDAY. 

" In hope," that so my soul may gain 
Harvest of joy from seeds of pain ; 
That, flooding o'er heart and brain, 

A deeper sense of sinful night 
May drive me closer to the Light, 
To read His love with clearer sight. 

" In fear," lest even while I weep. 
As once of old, forgetful sleep 
Should o'er the willing spirit creep, 

And I should hear, as heard the Three, 
Those words of chiding sympathy, 
"Couldst thou not watch one hour with Me?" 

Be Hope the stronger! O be Thou, 
Dear Lord, the Guardian of my vow- 
To keep my vigil near Thee now ; 

Aid my " weak flesh " this holy tide, 
That I, despite all sloth or pride, 
May watch and pray as at Thy side. Amen. 

S. J. Stone. 

O Almighty God, our Heavenly Father, renew in 
us, we humbly pray Thee, the gifts of Thy mercy, 
increase our faith, strengthen our hope, enlighten 
our understanding, enlarge our charity, and make 
us ever ready to serve Thee both in body and soul ; 
through Jesus Christ Thy Son, our Lord. Amen. 



121 



Wt)t SunUag next before (faster. 

Palm £tmtmg. 

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion ; shout, O daughter 
of Jerusalem : behold, thy King cometh unto thee : He 
is just, and having salvation ; lowly, and riding upon an 
ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass. — Zech. ix. 9. 

That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow . . . 
and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is 
Lord, to the glory of God the Father. — Phil. ii. 10, 11. 

It is surely one of the strangest scenes in 
the Gospel story that we are called to look 
upon to-day. It is true that, since 1549, when 
the Service for the Benediction of the Palms, 
which in the ancient English Church used to 
take place before the Holy Communion, was 
set aside, a distinguishing feature of the day 
has not until very recently been represented in 
any of the Scriptures for the day ; yet almost 
everywhere and by all, to-day is known and 
thought of as Palm Sunday, and that remark- 
able entrance of our Lord in the Holy City at 
the very beginning of the week of His passion, 
and removed but a few days from his crucifixion, 
is in all our minds. It is a strange scene, we 
say, as we view it in its sombre setting, side by 
122 



THE SUNDAY NEXT BEFORE EASTER. 

side with what followed so very soon. How do 
we account for it ? What was its significance ? 
Such an inquiry will be found, if we mistake 
not, in perfect keeping with our thoughts and 
feelings to-day, and a fit preparation for the 
holy week upon which we are entering. 

May we not reverently say that there was 
almost an inherent, a divine necessity for such 
an event in the Saviour's life ? He was a King, 
and it behooved Him so to enter as kings did, 
and yet, because He was no ordinary king, not 
as kings did, the City of the Great King. He 
was the Christ, or the Anointed One ; and kings 
as well as prophets and priests were anointed. 
We think of Him as a Teacher, and so He was. 
We think of Him as a Priest. It is that office 
upon which, with so much minuteness of de- 
tail, the Gospel calls us to dwell this week. 
But He was also a King. For such the people 
were looking. Such a coming had been fore- 
told. Hence their shouts, " Hosanna ! save 
now!" He would not disappoint the expecta- 
tion, fail of the fact, though He corrected their 
conception of it. No opportunity for their 
acceptance of Him as the Messiah that He 
would not give. Not through His commission 
or omission should there be any ground when 
123 



He ::irj.r 11:1 His i — i ::: His : ~ 11 :; receive 
Him not. Prophet, Priest, and King, they 
should all be seen combined in Him. And 

:ie nil rerin ::' H s ii_irsii: "is :ie heirs 
::" nil 7n: "is :ie ir.'.y r : ; ciir : i ; ■- - nil 
Hi nrel 

Ail si :ie rrei: i„::i.::i ::: us is H : 
far is He actually ruling there ? Oh, it is easy 
ei : v. ii : : : us : : : 1:1 z : ur ; i- n r r^r. : i es : i 
tie Curii ::- i nr.i si nir±i tie iiy s event 
The multitude at Jerusalem took theirs. It is 

and poll down branches from the trees and 

stre~ tien in tie ~iy. ti iniri H in ties-e 
nt"'irl r.:r.:rs :: syeili i: Hn is i:.: i/re.it 
Tenier. :: linire His ;-e:eits :: rem ::: 
benefit of them in oar cxdlizatkm. It is easy 
eniii :: siii_: i_: Hi sir.- is :i sir :tir 
i ins ni s~ ei r..- "in: r;: ne ™e :~i- 
111 Hi is Hni ;: iiei : ire ~e 11111 H s 
throne a place in oar hearts? Are we taking 
His precepts into oar lives? Is He oar King, 
King of that kingdom which is within ? If not, 
He is "ir-in: is truly 11 :i 1= 1 1:1 111:1; 
n in u: sii in tie 11 list 1: ill 1:1 iimme 15 
H: ~is 11 tilt i~st me " r ire : 1 rnriem 1 mi- 
:ii I: H: .1 tier, r.^ is n. .11 it :._- ml 
::_ 



THE SUNDAY NEXT BEFORE EASTER. 

as when His disciples, in their sincerity, shouted 
their Hosannas, and the Pharisees called upon 
Him to rebuke them, He said, "I tell you that 
if these should hold their peace, the stones 
would immediately cry out." 

Live in me. Prophet, Priest, and King! 
As Prophet, lead me in Thy light ! 
As Priest, present my offering! 
Lead and restrain me by Thy might ; 
So that, as King, Thou mayst fulfil 
In me Thy kingdom, all Thy will ! 
Live. Christ, live Thou in me ! 

Anon. 

O Lord Jesus, my Saviour, I adore Thee who 
didst ride, meek and lowly, into the city, and didst 
shod tears over Thine ancient people. Look with 
mercy on me : and grant that, weeping for my own 
sins now and striving against them, I may cause 
joy in the presence of the angels, even to Thee, my 
most loving Lord. Let the memory of thy suffer- 
ings ever be with me, and let not Thy sorrows be in 
vain for me. Grant me pardon and peace, that I 
may *<:r\\: Thee all my days in obedience and love. 
Amen. 

125 



§0lg tOeek. 
9 

JHottUag before faster. 

Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed gar- 
ments from Bozrah? this that is glorious in his apparel, 
travelling in the greatness of His strength ? I that speak 
in righteousness, mighty to save. 

Wherefore art Thou red in Thine apparel, and Thy gar- 
ments like him that treadeth in the winefat ? 

I have trodden the winepress alone ; and of the people 
there was none with Me. — Isaiah lxiii. 1-3. 

As we enter upon this sacred week, we seem 
to hear the voice of God speaking to us as He 
did to Moses of old at Horeb, and saying, " Put 
off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place 
whereon thou standest is holy ground/' Such 
should be the spirit in which we begin it, such 
the frame of mind that should mark it to the 
end. 

A profitable and the more common exercise 

of the devout mind this week is to meditate on 

the events of each day as it comes, so far as 

those which marked the Saviour's Passion can 

126 



MONDAY BEFORE EASTER. 

be assigned to certain days. And the Gospel 
narrative, as told by the different Evangelists, 
is read at length in our hearing. But the 
Epistles strike a keynote of their own, which, 
without disregard of that which is distinctive 
of the several days, let it be ours at this time 
to catch. 

It is the figure of the great Deliverer, also 
the great Sufferer, that we see approaching. 
He seems to come, as the prophet looking for 
redemption in Israel saw Him, from Edom, 
a land always in a state of hostility to the 
Israelites. He came red in His apparel, all His 
garments stained with blood, for the conflict 
had been fierce. But he came as conqueror, 
nevertheless. The prophet builded better than 
he knew. It is the image of the Saviour of 
the spiritual Israel. It is the image of Him, 
the way of whose sorrows we are now to tread. 
He, too, shows the marks of conflict, in His 
soul exceeding sorrowful even unto death, in 
His wounds, His crown of thorns, in His purple 
robe of scorn. But not less is He the Saviour 
now victorious, travelling onward in His might. 
It is the thought of the cost of redemption, 
but still redemption, that is brought before us. 
It is the picture of the Captain of our salva- 
127 



MONDAY BEFORE EASTER. 

tion made perfect through sufferings ; an ex- 
ample to, and a sympathizer with, all his under 

"It is worth our thought," writes one, "how 
small that audience must be that would assem- 
ble, life through, to listen to a gospel that said 
nothing to sufferers, nothing to sorrow. How 
tires :me would be that monotony of superficial 
satisfaction ! How the poor, weak hearts, ach- 
ing and struggling under crosses, would refuse 
to come to a Comforter that never wept, nor 
remembered that His followers must weep ! " 
So let us rejoice in, and be thankful for, the 
comforts of this Holy time. Let us open our 
hearts for this mighty Sufferer and Victor to 
enter. 

The rjiul'.irude "i? zrz^-izzz ah :he ":-y. 

Bat yesterday, 
7 : — izzi : : . :h :he Lire 15 He r: ie : y. 

To catch His eye, 
Or, at the very least, a palm-branch fling 
11 the pathway of the chosen King. 

7 red and dry those palms lie in the son, 

V»":::;erei each me : 
Those glad, rejoicing shooters presently 
Will f.:-:k :: see. 

1 
The Kin.; 0: G.:rv cr. His znt. :::s5. 

125 



MONDAY BEFORE EASTER. 

Lord, we would fain some little palm-branch lay 

Upon Thy way ; 
But we have nothing fair enough or sweet 

For holy feet 
To tread, nor dare our sin-stained garments fling 
Upon the road where rides the Righteous King. 

Yet Thou, all gracious One, didst not refuse 

Those fickle Jews ; 
And even such worthless leaves as we may cull, 

Faded and dull, 
Thou wilt endure and pardon and receive, 
Because Thou knowest we have naught else to give. 

So, Lord, our stubborn wills we first will break, 

If Thou wilt take ; 
And next our selfishness, and then our pride, 

And what beside ? 
Our hearts, Lord, poor and fruitless though they be, 
And quick to change, and nothing worth to see. 

Susan Coolidge. 

O Thou, Who comest from Edom, glorious in Thy 
apparel, travelling in the greatness of Thy strength, 
who speaketh in righteousness, mighty to save, gra- 
ciously behold Thy people who call upon Thee. In 
all our affliction Thou wast afflicted, and the angel 
of Thy presence saved us. Thou who didst tread the 
winepress alone, when of the people there was none 
with Thee, see now of the travail of Thy soul, and 
be satisfied. To Thee, sacrificed for us, do we here 
and now, in Thy presence and in the week of Thy 
129 



MONDAY BEFORE EASTER. 

Passion, present ourselves, our souls and bodies, to 
be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto Thee, 
beseeching Thee so to strengthen us by Thy grace, 
that we may both follow the example of Thy pa- 
tience and also be made partakers of Thy resurrec- 
tion, who art with the Father and the Holy Ghost 
one God, world without end. Amen. 



130 



f 

Euesfcag More faster. 



Then Pilate therefore took Jesus, and scourged Him. 

And the soldiers platted a crown of thorns, and put it 
on His head. — St. John xix. i. 2. 

Then did they spit in His face, and buffeted Him : 
and others smote Him with the palms of their hands. 

St. Matthew xxvi. 67. 

The first great thought that now comes to 
fill our souls, and to shut out for the moment, 
— if not for all this Passion Week, — every 
thought besides, is this, that Christ is a Suf- 
ferer — a Sufferer before us, a Sufferer with us, 
a Sufferer for us. At Bethany "Jesus wept." 
Two days hence lie comes to Gethsemane, 
and the third to the Cross, lie must gain the 
whole world's faith to save it ; He must lay 
hold of the widest possible range of human 
sympathies ; and to that end He becomes a 
Sufferer. 

131 



TUESDAY BEFORE EASTER. 

Not that He, or His religion, ministers to no 
states or seasons but those that are painful. 
Something in Him touches everything in us. 
All our humanity, with all its possible moods 
and conditions, is somehow included and mas- 
tered and interpreted by Him. He goes with 
us in our recreation as well as in the funeral 
procession ; He sits in the full tide of health 
at festivals as well as with the mourner by the 
new-made grave, or amidst the fragments of 
ruined plans ; He comes to Bethany when the 
three there are well, not only when Lazarus is 
dead. All the rooms of our houses are for 
Him, to come in and abide, as well as the 
chambers of sickness or of the laying out of 
the dead. This is indeed a characteristic trait 
that distinguishes the Christian faith from 
every religious pretension that was ever set 
up. It is not one-sided, as being all for melan- 
choly, or all for mirth — not stoical or epi- 
curean. It has as many sides as our life has, 
goes with us wherever we can go, and only 
asks that it may consecrate everything with its 
blessing. The Saviour sighs for us that we 
may not sigh forever. He weeps with us, and 
bids us weep with each other, that even here 
we may be as though we wept not. He re- 
132 



TUESDAY BEFORE EASTER. 

joices with us, so that, gaining our hearts, He 
may give them joys that are eternal. 

But it is when looking up to heaven, with 
a miserable invalid before Him, He sighs; it 
is when coming to the sepulchre of Lazarus 
with His bereaved friends about Him, He 
weeps; it is when He cries out with His own 
anguish at Gethsemane and the Cross, that He 
draws nearest, gives us most of Himself, and 
makes us feel how really one with us this 
Divine Redeemer is. Imagine for a moment 
a pretended Christ who demanded our faith 
chiefly on the score of His interest in out- 
happier moments ; how the burdened heart of 
the world — and even of the happiest hearts in 
it — would turn from Him, disappointed! If 
He did not sigh for us, we should still have 
to sigh for each other, and then to turn and 
sigh still for a Saviour that would sigh for us 
— only in Him acknowledging the Master of 
our life and of our death. Bishop Huntington. 

They bound Thy temples with the twisted thorn : 

Thy bruised feet went languid on with pain : 
The blood, from all Thy flesh with scourges torn, 
Deepened Thy robe of mockery's crimson grain : 
Whose native vesture bright 
Was the unapproached light. 
The sandal of whose foot the rapid hurricane. 

133 



TUESDAY BEFORE EASTER. 

For us, for us. Thou didst endure the pain, 

And Thy meek spirit bowed itself to shame, 
To wash our souls from sin's infecting stain, 
To avert the Father's wrathful vengeance flame ; 

Thou that couldst nothing win 

By saving worlds from sin. 
Nor aught of glory add to Thy all-glorious name. 

H. H. MlLMAX. 

O Lord God. whose blessed Son. our Saviour, 
gave His back to the smiters. and did not hide His 
face from shame, grant us grace to take joyfully the 
sufferings of the present time in full assurance of 
the glory that shall be revealed, through the same 
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 



*34 



goto tocck. 

OJrtmrsfoag Move faster* 

For where a testament is, there must also of necessity 
be the death of the testator. — Hebrews ix. 16. 
Without shedding of blood is no remission. 

Hebrews ix. 22. 

Now once in the end of the world hath He appeared to 
put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. 

Hebrews ix. 26. 

If the cross were simply a revelation of the 
guilt and peril of sin, and if there were no hope 
of rescue save in our own strength, the boldest 
of us, when conscious of his weakness, would 
recoil from that fact in despair. When I say, 
" God be merciful to me, a sinner," what an 
awful chasm would be made, if I were forbidden 
to utter the word merciful, while there was left 
behind only the overwhelming consciousness of 
sin ? It is mercy that we want, the mercy of 
God that we need. Mercy ! pardon ! is the cry 
i35 



WEDNESDAY BEFORE EASTER. 

of the awakened human heart. And it is the 
cross which responds to the despairing cry of 
the penitent soul. I speak not of the insensible, 
of the morally dead, but of those whose hearts 
are aroused to some consciousness of their spir- 
itual wants. What is it they need, that they 
may not despair — that they may have some 
hope and some energy with which to meet the 
power of evil ? What is needed ? What has the 
world always needed ? Not the help of friends 
as powerless as themselves, not the frozen and 
uncertain precepts of philosophy, but faith that 
God has compassion on them, the assurance 
that He is pitiful and merciful, and will hear 
their prayer out of the dust, and will help them 
in their sore need, — the assurance that He does 
not look coldly on us from the sky, but that He 
looks in love ; and all language is weak to ex- 
press this assurance, compared with the cross 
of Christ. The heavens might break forth into 
articulate voices of revelation, and they would 
be meaningless compared with that great sacri- 
fice. For what is it but saying, in the words of 
the Apostle, He that gave his own Son to die 
for us, how much more will He with Him also 
freely give us all things ? 

E. Peabody. 
136 



WEDNESDAY BEFORE EASTER. 

Oh, the bitter pain and sorrow 

That a time could ever be, 
When I proudly said to Jesus, — 

" All of self, and none of Thee.'' 

Yet He found me ; I beheld Him 
Bleeding on the accursed tree ; 

And my wistful heart said, faintly, 
k * Some of self, and some of Thee. 1 " 

Day by day His tender mercy, 
Healing, helping, full and free, 

Brought me lower, while I whispered, — 
" Less of self, and more of Thee ! n 

Higher than the highest heaven, 

Deeper than the deepest sea, 
Lord, Thy love at last has conquered 

None of self, and all of Thee ! 

Theodore Monod. 

Almighty Father, who hast taught us this day in 
Thy Holy Word that without shedding of blood is 
no remission, and that where a testament is, there 
must also be the death of the testator, we thank 
Thee for that Thou of Thy tender mercy didst give 
Thine only Son, Jesus Christ, to suffer death upon 
the cross for our redemption, who made thereby 
His one oblation of Himself, once offered a full, 
perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satis- 
faction for the sins of the whole world. By Him 
137 



WEDNESDAY BEFORE EASTER. 

let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continu- 
ally, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name. 
We are come unto Mount Zion and unto the city of 
the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an in- 
numerable company of angels, to the general assem- 
bly and Church of the first-born, which are written 
in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the 
spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus, the 
Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood 
of sprinkling that speaketh better things than that 
of Abel. Let us see that we refuse not Him that 
speaketh. Let us draw near with a true heart, in 
full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled 
from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with 
pure water. Let us hold fast the profession of our 
faith without wavering, and let us consider one an- 
other to provoke unto love and good works. Con- 
firm the covenant, we beseech Thee, as Thou hast 
promised, with many, for one week, for in the midst 
of the week shall Messiah be cut off, but not for 
Himself. And do Thou, the God of peace, who 
brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, 
that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood 
of the everlasting covenant, make us perfect in every 
good work to do His will, working in us that which 
is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, 
to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen. 



138 



Efjurstrag before faster. 

fflauntig Ojurstmg. 

For I have received of the Lord that which also I 
delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus, the same night 
in which He was betrayed, took bread : 

And when He had given thanks, He brake it, and said, 
Take, eat ; this is My body, which is broken for you : this 
do in remembrance of Me. 

After the same manner also He took the cup, when He 
had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in My 
blood : this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance 
of Me. 

For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, 
ye do shew the Lord's death till He come. 

i Corinthians xi. 23-26. 

And when they had sung an hymn, they went out into 
the mount of Olives. 

Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called 
Gethsemane, and saith unto the disciples, Sit ye here, 
while I go and pray yonder. 

St. Matthew xxvi. 30, 36. 

" With desire I have desired to eat this 
Passover with you before I suffer : for I say 
*39 



THURSDAY BEFORE EASTER. 

unto you, I will not any more eat thereof, until 
it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God." So 
spoke Jesus to the twelve as He sat down with 
them the night before His crucifixion. 

One reason for this intense desire was, it 
seems, that now, for the last time, He should 
be among them as their friend and companion, 
eating and drinking with them. For His death 
and resurrection made a great change in their 
relations. He was anxious, too, to fulfil the 
law of Moses, anxious to have all things done 
that He might the more speedily accomplish 
His Passion and His Cross. 

But most especially He desired it, we believe, 
that He might give to them, as the representa- 
tives of His church, the Sacrament of the New 
Covenant, the Sacred Mysteries of His death, 
the Sacrifice forever, their continual Feast. 
Nowhere else is it told us that He desired 
anything with exceeding desire. This Passover 
He will eat now, and nevermore. For it shall 
be fulfilled immediately in the kingdom of God. 
That cup He gives them, the wine mingled 
with water, the Cup of the old Covenant at the 
Supper, of which He will not drink again. 
That, too, shall be fulfilled immediately, in the 
kingdom of God. He is about to give them 
140 



THURSDAY BEFORE EASTER. 

the flesh of a better Lamb, the Lamb of God, a 
better Cup, even the Cup of the New Covenant, 
in His own blood, broken and shed for them 
already in everlasting purpose in type, soon to 
be in very deed broken and shed upon the 
cross. 

When the children of Israel entered into 
the promised land, the manna ceased. So now 
that the disciples of Jesus are entering into the 
kingdom, for them the old order ceases. Shad- 
ows flee away, the substance is made theirs, 
the True Manna, the Bread from Heaven. 

Anon. 

According to Thy gracious word, 

In meek humility, 
This will I do, my dying Lord, 

I will remember Thee. 

Thy body, broken for my sake, 
My bread from heaven shall be; 

Thy sacramental cup I take, 
And thus remember Thee. 

Can I Gethsemane forget? 

Or there thy conflict see. 
Thine agony and bloody sweat. 

And not remember Thee? 

When to the cross I turn mine eyes, 

And rest on Calvary, 
O Lamb of God, my sacrifice, 

I must remember Thee. 
141 



THURSDAY BEFORE EASTER. 

Remember Thee, and all Thy pains. 

And all Thy love to me : 
Yes. while a breath, a pulse remains, 

Will I remember Thee. 

And when these failing lips grow dumb, 

And mind and memory flee. 
When Thou shalt in Thy kingdom come. 

Jesus, remember me. 

Montgomery. 

Who shall measure the benignant influence 
of the Lord's Supper? Could we this day look 
down on the earth from some high summit, as 
the angels may look, what strength to strug- 
gling virtue, what consolation to the heart of 
sorrow, would be seen to flow out from this 
simple ordinance. Whenever it is observed, it 
is a point of light in the darkness. In great 
cathedrals, in humble wayside chapels, in un- 
numbered scenes where men meet for worship, 
millions are uniting in this act of remembrance. 
To great numbers it may be little more than a 
sobered recognition of the benefits of Christ's 
mission and death, and this is well and good. 
But to multitudes it is the bread of life ; multi- 
tudes have said, or will say, while they kneel 
at the altar, Here I sacrifice my thoughts of 
hate and anger and revenge towards my neigh- 
bor. The desponding look up to the cross 
142 



THURSDAY BEFORE EASTER. 

and learn, when the sun of life grows dark at 
noon, still to trust in God. Friends, soon to 
part from one another, meet to break this 
bread which, before God, pledges them to 
mutual thoughts and memories of love. Re- 
turning wanderers here remember Him in their 
fresh thankfulness. In his sick chamber the 
dying man, raised on some trusted arm, with 
those dearest to him, joins in this ordinance of 
forgiveness and love and faith and immortal 
hope, as his last act on earth. The penitent 
receives humbly these emblems of the blood 
shed for many for the remission of sins. And 
the guiltiest, even though they do not obey, 
listen to that appeal which comes from the 
cross of the Redeemer. e. Peabody. 

'Twas August, and the fierce sun overhead 

Smote on the squalid streets of Beth rial Green, 
And the pale weaver, through his windows seen 

In Spitalliclds, look'd thrice dispirited. 

I met a preacher there I knew, and said ; 

44 111 and o'erworked, how fare you in this scene?" 
11 Bravely ! M said he, 4t for I of late have been 

Much cheer'd with thoughts of Christ, the living bread. " 

O human soul ! as long as thou canst so 

Set up a mark of everlasting light, 
Above the howling senses* ebb and Mow, 
U3 



THURSDAY BEFORE EASTER. 

To cheer thee, and to right thee if thou roam- 

Not with lost toil thou labourest through the night ! 
Thou mak'st the heaven thou hop'st indeed thy home. 

Matthew Arnold. 

Fresh from th 1 atoning sacrifice 

The world's Creator bleeding lies, 

That man, His foe, by whom He bled, 

May take Him for his daily bread. 

O agony of wavering thought 

When sinners first so near are brought! 

" It is my Maker — dare I stay? 

My Saviour — dare I turn away ? n 

Sweet awful hour ! the only sound 
One gentle footstep gliding round, 
Offering by turns on Jesus 1 part, 
The Cross to every hand and heart. 
Refresh us, Lord, to hold it fast ; 
And when Thy veil is drawn at last, 
Let us depart where shadows cease, 
With words of blessing and of peace. 

J. Keble. 

It was after the last Supper in that upper: 
room at Jerusalem, the Paschal moon shining 
down upon them,- the same that is shining upon 
us to-night, that Jesus went forth with His disci- 
ples over the brook Cedron, where was a garden, 
into the which He entered with His disciples. 

" That hour in the garden was a precious op- 
portunity given for laying in spiritual strength. 
Christ knew it well. He struggled and fought 
144 



then, therefore there was no stl ' er- 

wards— no trembling in the judgment-hall — 

no shrinking on the cross, but only dignified 
and calm victory, for lie had fought the temp- 
tation on His knees beforehand, and conquei 
all in the garden. The battle of the Judgment- 
hall, the battle of the Cross, were already fought 
and won in the Watch and in th The 

.apostles missed the meaning of that hour ; and 
"therefore when it came to the question of trial, 
the loudest boaster of them all shrunk from ac- 
knowledging whose he was, and the rest played 
the part of the craven and the renegade. And 
if the reason of this be asked, it is simply this : 
They went to trial unprepared; they had not 
prayed : and what is a Christian without prayer 
but Samson without his talisman of hair ? It is 
marvellous how difficulties smooth away before 
a Christian when he goes to God in prayer." 

F. W. Robertson. 

All through the watching night 
The calm Judaean stars looked down 
From out the silent heavens — God's crown 

Amid creation's light. 

O wondrous night of prayer ! 
Big with a blessing none can tell : 
The Word — " 1 am " — Emmanuel 

The Cod-man wrestled there I 
'45 



THURSDAY BEFORE EASTER. 

Sure, angels must have veiled 
Their faces, awe-struck at the sight ; 
Only the wide-eyed stars all night 

Kept angel watch, unpaled. 

O praying Christ ! on me 
Thy supplicating grace bestow ; 
For each new debt of love I owe, 

Thy love must be my plea. 

Teach me to suffer loss 
Of all, for good thafs most divine ; — 
How shall I hate thee, sin of mine, 

For which He bore the cross ! 

Ah graceless self ! how scarred 
The features of thy soul by sin : 
So blurred, scarce can be traced within 

Christ's likeness, dimmed and marred ! 

Lord ! wilt Thou deign to make 
This fallen heart all new and fair, 
And write thy superscription there — 

^Accepted for My sake." 

Mary K. A. Stone. 

Almighty Father, whose dear Son did in the gar- 
den of Gethsemane accept the cup thou gavest Him 
to drink, that so He might taste death for every 
man, mercifully grant that we, to whom He minis- 
ters the cup of blessing, may thankfully receive it 
in remembrance of Him, and show our Lord's death 
till He come, who liveth and reigneth with Thee 
and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. 
Amen. 

146 



Jiffl) toeek. 



And sitting down they watched Him there. 

St. Matthew xxvii. 36. 

Now there stood by the cross of Jesus His mother, and 
His mother's sister, Mary the wife of Cleophas, and Mary 
Magdalene. — St. John xix. 25. 

Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is 
written of me) to do Thy will, O God. 

By the which will we are sanctified through the offer- 
ing of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. 

Hebrews x. 7, 10. 

The chastisement of our peace was upon Him. 

Isaiah liii. 5. 

At last the day to which all through Lent 
we have been looking forward, has come. We 
stand — nay, we kneel — at the foot of the Cr< 
Our great object should be to fix our eyes, our 
thoughts, upon it, or rather, upon Him who 
hangs there; and to do so in such a spirit as 
shall win its blessing. 

Concentric circles of watchers, with ever 
147 



GOOD FRIDAY. 

deepening feeling and motive, were there. 
First, were those who passed by simply to 
revile. Next, the crowd of curious observers, 
who " came together to that sight " merely as 
a spectacle, and who smote upon their breasts 
and returned. Next, the centurion and those 
that were with him, intent only on the proper 
carrying out of the verdict that Jesus should 
be crucified. Next, and distant, albeit so near, 
was the malefactor crucified with Him, and 
who, even under such circumstances, railed on 
Him. Next, the penitent thief, who rebuked 
his fellow-criminal, and said unto Jesus, " Lord, 
remember me when thou comest into thy king- 
dom." And lastly, those really nearest to Him 
of all who stood by the Cross, His mother and 
His mother's sister, Mary, the wife of Cleo- 
phas, and Mary Magdalene, and the disciple 
whom Jesus loved. 

And that Cross has been the central object 
ever since. As the ages waited for it, so have 
they looked back to it. By the waysides of 
Europe, in the cells of monasteries, on the tops 
of cathedral spires, and on village churches, as 
a symbol, everywhere the Cross, or the Crucifix, 
has been a power ; has called men back to that 
for which ever since the first Good Friday it has 
stood. 148 



P.OOD FRIDAY. 

It is the central object, of course, to-day. 
Thousands upon thousands, in every clime, of 
every tongue, are now fixing their eyes upon it, 
upon Him who said, " I, if I be lifted up, will 
draw all men unto me." A growing custom of 
the Three Hours' Service, so-called, invites peo- 
ple for the period for which it is supposed the 
Saviour, prior to His death, hung upon the 
Cross, to come and dwell on that scene, to 
stand, to kneel, beholding, and to meditate 
upon the Seven Words which He spake. 

As we watch Him there, then, to-day, with 
the Word of God in our hands, what do we see? 

First, the Only Begotten Son of the Father. 
Truly this was the Son of God, said even the 
centurion. Lose not sight of this fact, the 
fundamental one of all, giving to all the others 
their efficacy. 

But He was also perfectly and completely, 
sin only except, the Son of Man. It is so that 
1 [e touches us, that representatively He is ours. 
We may not seek to comprehend the atone- 
ment, it is a mystery. But all that we need to 
know we do know. 

" We may not know, we cannot tell, 
What pains He had to bear; 

But wt- believe it was for us 
lie bung and suffered there. 1 ' 

149 



GOOD FRIDAY. 

" He bore our sins in His own body on the 
tree." " The chastisement of our peace was 
upon Him." " He made Him to be sin for us 
who knew no sin, that we might be made the 
righteousness of God in Him/* The active 
obedience of His life, and a perfect obedience, 
which became obedience even unto death is, if 

i'l, ours. What need we more than that ; 
and glorying in the blessed fact, not asking how 

s so, but only longing to make it our own, 
we pray as we watch, O Lamb of God, that takest 
away the sins of the world, grant us Thy peace. 
Lastly, it is, let us not forget, a willing obedi- 
ence that we are beholding. " No man taketh 
my life from me," He said, " I lay it down of 

: " M Lo, I come (in the volume of the 
book it is written of Me,) to do Thy will, O God. 
I am content to do it ; yea, Thy law is within 
my heart. By the which will we are sanctified." 
We might stumble at it, were His life taken 
from Him. We can say nothing if He chooses 
to lay it down. We might recoil from the 
thought of God visiting death upon Him 
can only be silent and adore, if for our sakes 
He wills to die. We are looking into the very 
depth of the love, of the virtue, of the atone- 
ment her^ 

150 



GOOD FRIDAY. 

But to-day we take our places with the 
watchers about the Cross. This is what we 
have seen. With which company do we 
belong? Oh, shall it not be with that little 
group, who, having dearly loved their Master, 
loved Him unto the end. Bring that to our 
contemplation of the Cross to-day, that love be- 
gotten of His great love to us, that love that 
clings to Him through all, which grows only 
deeper in the darkness, and new visions of the 
meaning of that sacrifice shall come to us ; we 
shall hate the sins which cost it, and, buried 
with Him in His death, we shall pass with Him 
to our joyful resurrection. 

Oh break, oh break, hard heart of mine ! 

Thy weak self-love and guilty pride 
His Pilate and his Judas were ; 

Jesus, our Lord, is crucified ! 

Come, take thy stand beneath the cross, 
And let the blood from out that side 

Fall gently on thee, drop by drop : 
Jesus, our Lord, is crucified ! 

A broken heart, a fount of tears, 
Ask, and they will not be denied; 

A broken heart love's cradle is, 
Jesus, our Lord, is crucified ! 

O love of God ! sin of mart ! 

In this dread act your strength is tried, 

And victory remains with love ; 
For He, our Lord, is crucified. 

F. W. Faber. 

151 



GOOD FRIDAY. 

Not those who set up the cross of wood on 
Calvary, not those who plotted His death, not 
those who drove the nails and the spear, did the 
real crucifying ; but human sin, the sins of the 
whole world, the sins of those who lived before, 
of those who have lived since, your sin and 
my sin, yesterday and to-day. All for whom 
Christ died were, so to speak, parties to His 
death, in His feet and hands set "the wound 
prints and His side," " Who His own self bore 
our sins in His own body on the tree." Those 
for whom He died, in the strange mystery of 
redemption, were those because of whom He 
died. "My sins nailed Him to the tree." 
There is a profound and solemn truth in that 
saying. We look back to all that scene on a 
green hill far away without a city wall ; we read 
anew and in minute detail the different stories 
that describe it to us ; we despise the weakness 
of Pilate, the vacillation of St. Peter, the envy 
of the Pharisees, the cruelty of the soldiers, the 
perfidy of Judas, the desertion of His followers, 
and we say these brought Him to His death, 
this was what crucified Him. And we forget 
that those were only representative sins, that 
moral weakness, unfaithfulness, insincerity, con- 
sideration of self in any of its forms, on the 
1^2 



GOOD FRIDAY. 

part of any of us, is crucifying the Son of God 
afresh and putting Him to an open shame, is 
of the essence of what they did. 

I see the crowd in Pilate's hall, 

I mark their wrathful mien ; 
Their shouts of 4i Crucify " appall, 

With blasphemy between. 

And of the shouting multitude 

I feel that I am one ; 
And in that din of voices rude 

I recognize my own. 

Around yon cross, the throng I see, 

Mocking the Sufferer's groan, 
Yet still my voice it seems to be — 

As if I mocked alone. 

'Twas I that shed the Sacred Blood, 

I nailed Him to the tree ; 
I crucified the Christ of God, 

I joined the mockery. 

Vet not the less that blood avails 

To cleanse away my sin. 
And not the less that cross prevails 

To give me peace within. 

II. Bonar. 

" Our peace/' Every heart that knows itself 

will bless God that the prophet used that word 

and no other. Peace ! yes, that is what we 

want. It conveys a sense that is all its own. 

'53 



GOOD FRIDAY. 

It tells of a quiet mind. It tells of opposing 
forces stilled forever. It tells of everything 
disturbing, at rest. And so, when prophet, or 
apostle, or Christ himself, would sum up what 
He has done, as on this day, for the world, that 
is the word they use. " Peace I leave with 
you, My peace I give unto you." 

Oh, would you know why it is that this day 
has a power unlike that of all other days that 
we know, why it is that it can speak to the 
profoundest moments in our life ? It is because 
it touches the profoundest moments; it is be- 
cause it brings us " that one joy unknown in 
heaven, the new-born peace of sins forgiven ;" 
it is because on One able and willing to bear it 
the chastisement of our peace was laid. 

Is it not strange; the darkest hour 

That ever dawn'd on sinful earth 

Should touch the heart with softer power 

For comfort, than an angel's mirth ? 

That to the Cross the mourner's eye should turn, 

Sooner than where the stars of Christmas burn ? 

Lord of my heart, by Thy last cry, 
Let not Thy blood on earth be spent — 
Lo, at Thy feet I fainting lie, 
Mine eyes upon Thy wounds are bent, 
Upon Thy streaming wounds my weary eyes 
Wait like the parched earth on April skies. 
154 



GOOD FRIDAY. 

Wash me, and dry these bitter tears, 
O let my heart no further roam, 
Tis Thine by vows, and hopes, and fears, 
Long since — O call thy wanderer home ; 
To that dear home, safe in Thy wounded side, 
Where only broken hearts their sin and shame may 
hide. 

J. Keble. 

I adore Thee, O blessed Saviour, who in Thine 
infinite love didst suffer so much for my sake. Re- 
member all Thy pain, the insults, the blows, the 
spitting on Thy face, the crown of thorns, the pain- 
ful Cross, the bitter death. Let not such suffering 
be in vain for me. Make me think of them as I 
should, and let them be to me salvation and joy. 
By Thine agony and bloody sweat, by Thy Cross 
and passion, by Thy precious death and burial, good 
Lord, deliver me. Amen. 

Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up 
to joy but first He suffered pain, and entered not 
into glory before He was crucified, mercifully grant 
that we, walking in the way of the Cross, may find 
it none other than the way of life and peace through 
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 



155 



f)oh) lUeek. 

faster Cbrn.— Ojr (Srrat Saiibarfj- 

And that day was the preparation, and the Sabbath 
drew on. 

And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments ; 
and rested the Sabbath day according to the command- 
ite:::. — St. Luke xxiii. 54-56. 

Pilate said unto them, Ye have a watch : go your way. 
make it as sure as ye can. 

So they went, and made the sepulchre sure, sealing the 
stone, and setting a watch. — St. Matthew xxvii. 65, 66. 

At length the worst is o'er, and Thou art laid 

Deep in Thy darksome bed ! 
All stiil and cold beneath yon dreary stone 

Thy sacred form is gone ; 
Around those lips, where power and mercy hung, 

The dews of death have clung ; 
The dull earth o'er Thee, and Thy foes around, 
Thou sleep'st a silent corse, in funeral fetters wound. 

J. Keble. 

After all the heart-affecting and appalling 
scenes we have been witnessing, how beneficial 
to our spirits is the solemn stillness that now 

reigns on Calvary ! I: is the preparation for 
156 



EASTER EVEN. — THE GREAT SABBATH. 

the Sabbath, and to us it seems just as if we 
heard the gentle sound of the Sabbath bells 
reaching us from a distance. The Gospel nar- 
rative, which details to us the circumstances 
attending our Lord's being taken down from 
the cross, His being laid in the grave, and the 
watch which was set over it, produce in us a 
tranquil and peaceful feeling. It is our last 
meditation on the history of our Saviour's Pas- 
sion. May the peace of God, which passeth 
understanding, be the precious fruit that we 
shall derive from it ! 

Who is to inter Him ? According to the 
law, it was the duty of the executioner to bury 
Him on the place of execution. But God or- 
dered it otherwise. After the great High 
Priest's atoning sacrifice had been offered up, 
He was not to be subjected to any further igno- 
miny. Two honorable men are intrusted with 
the interment ; and a company of tried female 
disciples, to whom it will be a consolation to be 
permitted to bathe the sacred body with their 
grateful tears, are to be joined with them. 
How grateful is the feeling to us, after all the 
ignominy and suffering He has endured, to see 
Him, at least once again, honorably reposing, 
and that too upon a couch which love, fidelity, 
l S7 



EASTER EVEN. — THE GREAT SABBATH. 

and tenderness have prepared for him ! There 
He slumbers. Oh, well for us that He was will- 
ing to pass through even this dark passage on 
our behalf ! The way we have seen Him go, 
we shall also take. If, therefore, the second 
Adam's rest in the grave was only a peaceful 
Sabbatic repose, ours cannot be anything more. 
If, on the third day, He was called forth from 
the prison in which the King of Terrors had 
confined Him, and was crowned with glory and 
honor, the same thing in due time awaits our 
bodies if we have entered into union with Him 
by faith and love. 

The friends of Jesus, accustomed to obey 
every commandment, remain quietly in their 
habitations during the great Sabbath. It is His 
enemies whom we see so active and busy at 
the first dawning of the morning. 

What do they mean by their extensive prep- 
arations ? They are fighting for the cause of 
death against life. Let them do their utmost. 
" The arm of the mightiest military empire on 
earth was in full play, but it was weaker than 
a straw. But the stone was sealed, and the 
guards paced to and fro in the Paschal moon- 
light, and did their best." An all overruling 
God controls their designs, and permits them 
158 



EASTER EVEN. THE GREAT SABBATH. 

to assist death by still more strongly forging 
his fetters, in order that the bursting of them 
may appear so much the more glorious. 

We depart from the sepulchre of our Lord, 
not in grief and sorrow, but full of joyful ex- 
pectation of what is shortly to take place. We 
already behold in spirit the first glimmer of 
the dawning resurrection-morn upon the rocky 
tomb. Then every seal will be broken, not 
from the Redeemer's tomb only, but also from 
the mystery of the whole of the Passion. An 
" Amen ! " from on high, the most glorious 
that ever resounded under heaven, will then 
announce to the world that reconciliation has 
been made, and that the Prince of Life, crowned 
with glory and honor, as the conqueror of all 
the powers that were opposed to us, offers the 
first Easter salutation of peace to the favored 
race of man, from the ruins of His shattered 
tomb. Let us then tune our harps, and hold our 
festive garlands in readiness, while awaiting the 
mighty moment that shall put an eternal end to 
all the sadness and anxiety of the human heart. 

I'. W. Krummachrr. 

Beside the dead I knelt for pr 

And felt a presence as I prayed; — 
Lo, it was fcsus standing there — 

He smiled — M Be not afraid." 

»59 



EASTER EVEN. — THE GREAT SABBATH. 

" Lord, Thou hast conquered death, we know, 

Restore again to life," I said, 
" This one who died an hour ago ; " 

He smiled — " He is not dead." 

" Asleep, then, as Thyself didst say; 

Yet thou canst lift the lids that keep 
His prisoned eyes from ours away." 

He smiled — " He doth not sleep." 

" Alas ! too well we know our loss, 
Nor hope again our joys to touch, 

Until the stream of death we cross." 
He smiled — " There is no such." 

" Yet our beloved seem so far, 

The while we yearn to feel them near ; 

Albeit with Thee we trust they are." 
He smiled — " And I am here." 

" Dear Lord, how shall we know that they 
Still walk unseen with us and Thee, 

Nor sleep, nor wander far away?" 
He smiled — " Abide in Me." 

R. W. Raymond. 

O Christ ! be favorable to our desires and 
prayers, and make prosperous to us this coming 
night of Holy Easter, that in it we may rise from the 
dead, and pass over into life with Thee, O Saviour 
of the world. 

In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, who was 
crucified upon the cross and laid in the grave for 
me, I lay me down to rest. May He bless and save 
me, raise me up again, and bring me at last to eter- 
nal life, of His great mercy. Amen 

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